


Morphology

by Yincira



Series: Beast Nebula [1]
Category: Predator Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Character(s), Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Planet, Aliens, Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology, Body Horror, Drama, F/M, Gen, Interspecies, Interspecies Relationship(s), Metamorphosis, Monsters, Mutants, Mutation, Plot Twist, Science Fiction, Unhealthy Relationships, Yautja
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 33
Words: 140,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yincira/pseuds/Yincira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A group of unwitting geeks, a few disoriented aliens, and an AI, and a slight lack of clear cut heroes around to save the day. Some are vying for a promotion, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ex Machina

 

_· · · · · · ·_

_2556 July 04, Hyperdyne Sector, planet New Chicago, Ghilsaer City_

__· · · · · · ·_ _

Had terraforming gone any better, it would have been a fine monsoon day. The sky was dark with clouds and it wasn't particularly warm, she could even see some people with umbrellas ready on the roads below. She wished they were right, for a change. At least they could use their umbrellas against the dust clouds that were carried in on the east wind. A strange chill ran over her back as she looked past the neighbor skyscraper, off into the desert hills. She wanted to go there now, step out of the window and gravity wouldn't matter anymore ...

"Oihana, snap out of it!" Mahad's voice called her away from her mental wandering and she noticed she was leaning out of the window quite far. She withdrew slowly, savoring the height for a few seconds with an eerie smile on her face.

"I think I should close the window," Melanie said abruptly.

Oihana didn't move as the teen reached for the window with as much distance between them as possible.

Her eyes settled on the carpet, where there was a worn path being worn down further by Frank's pacing. He always said he was fine, but he wasn't.

"Are you getting anywhere yet?" Frank asked yet again, looking at the teen with his laptop.

"As of five seconds in the future, you bet." Mahad feigned calmness far better, and if he was worked up it was over excitement. Only Melanie actually was as collected as she appeared as she leaned on the back of Mahad's chair.

Oihana left the window and squeezed aside the two teens that now crowded the back of Mahad's chair. An irritated Melanie pushed Frank aside a little further, Oihana stepped aside on her own.

On the screen were images of ancients ruins on planet earth, zoomed in on sand scraped hieroglyphs. Oihana wasn't sure what she was looking at, but Melanie felt like she knew something, but said nothing yet, wanting to be certain. Mahad held up the laptop so she could see better. When Frank was about to speak, Melanie held up a finger and he fell silent.

Reaching out, she touched the screen and zoomed in on various more photographs. After a while she had assembled a row of two dozen cut frames.

"Alright, watch the details closely, I want you to recognize what I saw."

Oihana saw carvings, drawings and writing, missing parts enhanced by Jormungandr's imaging program. There was a superficial similarity, but not much meaningful to her. It could be coincidences, especially with how different the larger images were.

"These come from India, Egypt, Mongolia and all throughout South America."

"Jormungandr also got us a little tidbit from planet Albast, recently discovered at the edge of the New Eden sector. Watch again."

More strange patterns, more details. Melanie's finger danced over the screen and brought together all the pieces. This time Mahad wanted to speak, but Melanie held up her finger again. "Eh eh eh. Just watch. The following batch is of that nifty ruin on Carmander that supposedly doesn't exist."

Mahad snorted at the thought of the government's officialness. They all knew it was there, thanks to Jormungandr.

In high speed the images faded away to be replaced, and a structural pattern became obvious. Melanie withdrew her hand once there was a complex overlay of copies and pastes.

Mahad was the first to speak. "Well, that settles our assumptions about them invading the planet or enslaving us. Apparently they've already been to our world, and we are not their eternal slaves yet. Though, that's just my opinion, right Frank?" he said, trying to elbow the young man.

Frank sidestepped, annoyed more than he let on. "Give it a rest."

Melanie rolled her eyes. "If they were here to invade us, they would have started with Alexandria or New Eden. New Chicago may be a large military production planet, or rather have been, but it barely is a fraction of mankind's forces. Strategically, it would be ridiculous to start here."

"Oh, he knows that," a smirking Mahad said.

"It could be a spy ship, to test our abilities?" Frank tried.

Mahad shrugged. "Let's find out what species they match _before_ we draw our conclusions, shall we? Zib's already going to be annoyed that we made progress without him."

"According to Jor, there are about five civilizations who might have been of influence on earth's ancient cultures, we have no more to go on that a few carvings," said Melanie stoically, then added with a hint of smugness, "Even if I helped him get a little further than before."

"I'm sure we can create a profile in no time. Oihana, can you and your mother find out more on that ship up there?"

"Off course," the girl said, her eyes turning to the corner.

Under the blanket there was a piece of tan metal, engraved in a way distantly similar to what Melanie had constructed. She walked over to pull the cloth away, kneeling down to run her fingers over it once more. There was a sting as it connected her to what awaited in orbit and she withdrew her hand quickly. Still the same violence behind it, so it wasn't ... wait.

There was ... it was coming here.

Quickly she stood up, turned heel and ran out of the room.

__· · · · · · ·_ _

Despite the ventilation switched to highest mode, the walls boiled. Two times the system had been checked, either test reporting that all worked as it should. The weather was simply to blame, surely. The weather, as Andrew understood, surely shouldn't be this hot when there was cloud cover and the evening of a long day. Below was the deep, dark city with only a small lit center surrounded by miles of abandoned buildings. There was nowhere else to look from this chair, facing the window that rounded over above him. No wall to look at instead. Damn modern architecture.

When he was finally called in, the supervisor of the Aaron Count was still speaking through her headset, ignoring him entirely. Patiently, he endured it. After all, patience was his best virtue.

"Mr Edelburg, I presume you know why you are here?" the woman finally said after placing away the headset.

"I have no made the progress you wanted."

"Indeed. I have read your rapports and must admit, you have amazing skill to use many words to describe how little you found. Tell me, do you even take the task assigned to you serious?"

Andrew clenched his teeth, swallowed the implied accusation of laziness and said, "I am fully aware of the situation, madam. I do what I can."

"Then why do I get the impression you do not try hard enough? It is a mere renegade System and you have all the resources."

They both knew well this was _not_ just the average virus, and he only had the resources of one faction.

"I am driving it into smaller spaces. It is a matter of ti—"

"Time we do not have, mr. Edelburg!" she said, voice raising higher than usual. She caught herself and leaned back against her chair, breathing out. "The board of direction has made a decision, Andrew."

"You will be given some limited control on the police units."

"How much control?" asked Andrew, shifting slightly in his seat. He was unsure of the situation and what to except, how could the police help him with this?

"As long as it does not interfere with public safety, Andrew. If our hackers fail, then we must find other means. Be creative with the law."

His curiosity was sparked. "You want me to isolate a few citizens who have a...let's say, suspicious profiles." She nodded briefly. "A variety of unexplained things have happened in the lower regions of the city, things that our own programmers cannot explain either. If it can't be tracked in cyberspace, then it must have more than hardware to fall back on."

"And the police will cooperate with me for this purpose," he said, thinking about what this could mean. It did not come as a surprise that Jormungandr had hackers, not to him, but he had a clue what to expect and he did not like sending the police there.

She took up the headpiece again and place it in her ear. "I trust you understand this all happen off record and out of cyberspace. You will meet with undercover agents in ways that Jormungandr cannot see. Maybe some activity in the real world will remedy your slow progress."

"I understand."

"You may go."

He nodded and stood up, only to rush out and stare. High in the sky a burning sphere hurled down.

"What _is_ that?"

"Hm?" She stood up and looked through her still open door. "Must be an meteorite. Quite a sight."

"It's too big, and it's not burning up as it should." He watched the object descend to the east in a diagonal angle, as if it were a falling vessel with still partial thrust.

"You couldn't have seen that far."

"With all due respect, yes, I can."

"Come now, Mr. Edelburg. You are not going to argue Jormungandr can make fire rain from the sky, are you?"

"No, but we did lose control of a radio tower there is a ship crashing to our planet." he said. "Is there any reason why we are suddenly out of time?"

She bit her lip, just for a moment. "We don't know whether that is a ship. Wouldn't we have received a distress signal?"

"Maybe Jormungandr found a way to intercept it? Now, please, answer my question."

"It may be nothing in the end, but ... we lost control of the water plants again. Given the people that inhabit the lower regions of the city, we expect it to be handy to have some forces ready. Your agent will tell more of it. Remember, Andrew, this could all be a coincidence. We do not want another fiasco chasing one of Jormungandr's ghosts."

"I understand."

He also understood the slight tremor that shook the earth as something bore a crater into the ground not too far away.

__· · · · · · ·_ _

A direct hit, and total engine failure. Nra'tex-ne didn't need to be a technical expert to know they were in deep problems. The Elders were debating about what to do with infuriating noise. Should they detonate and take along all evidence of themselves, given how dangerously close the human city was? Or should they try to repair while the threat of the other clan still was there? Some argued it was most honorable to accept their fate and meet the Black Warrior with dignity, others claimed they would not be welcomed if they would not take the effort to clear their name, which they could not do if they were dead.

To him, the answer was clear. They had a whole tribe to return to, so their name had to be cleared. It was incredible there even was debate on this.

Leaving the Elders to their roaring, he made his way to the ships hull. Injured were being towed out of the halls, he saw medicine being salvaged and technicians scattered around to repair whatever damage they saw fit. As he was neither medic not mechanic, he made himself scarce.

The ship had collided with a sandy hill and was partially buried under a collapsed crater. Night had fallen and a creeping cold surrounded them. Sensors indicated the nearby city held the warmth that the ship soon would be missing, but it would be no use to them.

A number of other hunters had made it outside, amongst which his sister. He could clearly smell her and tracked her off the hull, finding her exploring the area.

She was hunched down at the ground, running her hand across the sand to test it.

"Is your scanner defect, sister?"

"No," she growled. "I don't need the damn thing to find water. We never needed it. So, did the Elders figure out what they want yet?"

"Not even close. Forgive my disrespect, but given how thin oxygen is here, I hope it will not take too long."

She thrilled her mandibles. "I can just see them argue for the time it takes for us to choke to death. The idiots are holding the wise down."

Standing up, she dusted her hands off and walked to one of the still standing walls of the crater, looking up.

"A number of us say we can collapse the rest of the crater to hide the ship, and we can do it before dawn if we use all our new tech. The stuff that isn't broken anyway. Think it'll work?"

"I think I need to ask Karga'te's friends about that. In any case, I agree. We don't want any curious humans."

"Tsss, off course."

A sudden loud thud drew her attention as something landed on the ridge above her. Instinctively she extended her wrist blades, ready to take a challenge if it would be presented.

Instead of an attacking beast, she was presented with a thick goo splashing all over her mask. Nra'tex-ne stared up at the young yautja, not needing even scent to guess who would emerge there.

"Greeted, honorable Meidache. The first medicine compartment has been opened, as I am sure you have guessed already. Hur'dhaxe said not to tell anyone though, so have my apologies for spilling it," Karga'te said with dripping insincerity.

While wiping the fluid further off her mask, Meidache glared up at the ridge that was just out of jumping reach. Unlike their full blood siblings, this 'brother' was not one she could appreciate and she never hesitated to make that clear. Nra'tex-ne was glad he was so high up and that Meidache was one of the most lenient females around.

"It is forgiven," she said just as insincere, only to continue dead serious. "At least until and if I find out we don't have enough medicine to go around."

"Off course, high lady," said Karga'te, bending his head in submission. As he sat on the ridge, high above her, he was still looking down on her.

As much as Nra'tex-ne had a secret amusement over his brother's antics, he had little tolerance for disrespect. He feigned walking away for important matters, then raced around the edge and up a higher ridge, as quiet as he could be. Jumping down, Karga'te had no chance to respond before he was shoved off the ridge. With a graceless tumble, he bounced off the slope and narrowly landed on hands and feet.

"Is that all you will do, Nra'tex-ne?" Meidache asked, now taking her turn to look down.

"You said he was forgiven, sister," he said easily. "I merely made sure he meant his apology."

From up here, he could see Kah'oneh and Tahlpake approach them. Gesturing in their direction, he told Meidache, "It appears the Elders have made a decision."

"Already?" she muttered under her breath. "Right. Karga'te, scram. Go scout or something. Find some water."

She took off to meet the others. Nra'tex-ne jumped down and offered his brother a hand, but Karga'te declined it with an irate hiss.

"I tell you again, do not taunt Meidache She is the only solid reason your attitude is tolerated."

"I know the story, Nra'tex-ne, She's just so..." He did not finished these sentences.

"I know. I just deal with it better than you do, that's why she is less annoying to me than she is to you. It's a vicious circle, what you two do."

Karga'te kept quiet, and Nra'tex-ne's mind returned to the quaint little disaster that had happened. He didn't really feel like thinking about what he couldn't change, and he would rather have Karga'te back in a distracting mood.

"Oh, about that medicine. What were you doing, spilling the knowledge?"

A mischievous look came on Karga'te's face. "Well, the medic did tell me to get the hell out of the working space. Didn't even give me the chance to put down the bottle of medicine in my hands. So I got the hell out of the ship and did not _tell_ anyone. I just dropped the bottle. Now Meidache just happens to know there is intact medicine in my part of the ship."

Nra'tex-ne thrilled. True, Karga'te was one obnoxious little youngling with a serious authority problem, but he had his unorthodox ways of helping out. Still, it was best if he disappeared out of sight for a little while after that.

"Come, I believe you were told to scout for water. You already got your weapons anyway, maybe you can find something edible too."

"Do I ever have them not?"

Nra'tex-ne nodded, and placed his hand on Karga'te's shoulder. His brother returned the gesture briefly, and gleefully disappeared into the desert.

Nra'tex-ne might have placed a second thought on sending his little brother out, but he was already thinking about other problems. Things like the Uendouktil Mue, the other House with which they shared the ship. Doubtlessly, there would be struggles over how the few medicines would be divided. There was no honor in dying from a mangled body and as Karga'te had indicated, the would be a shortage.

__· · · · · · ·_ _


	2. City Arteries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then the silly little alien made a miscalculation and got into trouble, and perhaps some people died.

__· · · · · · ·_ _

The desert presented Karga'te with a taunting boredom. A little lizard was no challenge or a food source, though they made for a decent snack.

Just wonderful. This was one of the few situations where he was to hunt without supervision and didn't have to care for something trivial like honor, and yet there was nothing to be found.

Theoretically, food hunts meant he had to hunt the weakest, lest he damage the population growth. However, he had a good guess that this area would eventually fall under the "anything goes" rule. Sooner or later the humans would find them, and then it was time for bombs. As far as he was concerned, "anything goes" might just as well start now. And there just happened to be a city of humans nearby, a species he had yet to see in the flesh and that was rumored to be fun. Humans were honorless and they loved playing dirty.

That was why they were here, in fact. There was rumor of humans in this city with technological enhancements and metal skeletons, they had come here for a conjoined hunt with another clan that had gotten the same information. The hunt was canceled now that the other clan inexplicably had declared war on them, but the prey was still there.

After a few more snacks, no trace of water and absolute certainty no other yautja were in the area, he set out for the city. In the hills and canyons it took a while to reach it, but the beacon of warmth that it radiated made it a certain find regardless of terrain.

Unlike the powerful cities he had seen on the yautja home world and the more primitive but still efficient buildings of his tribe, this place consisted out of strange, square and terrible fragile looking constructions. Clumsy to say the best, retarded to be honest. The nearest buildings to the hill where he stood were crumbling, one earthquake could probably knock these things over.

As he descended, breathing became sharply unpleasant. There was a thick, disgusting scent rolling towards him through the dust filled air. Whatever lived here had to be vile, and he became all the more curious. What culture's city could be so could smell so much like decay and chemicals? Sure, the training pits were not very appealing in scent either, but that was just blood and sweat. This city smelled sick.

Turning on his cloaking device, he climbed. The edges were smoothened by sand filled winds and it wasn't easy to hold onto. He jumped across a few roofs, but after three cases of crumbling walls and once falling when his hand slipped on a ledge too smooth, he stayed on the ground. Surprisingly, here he found a few unfamiliar scent trails. If these belonged to humans, they apparently they weren't all that three dimensional in their movements.

This area was abandoned, though oddly warm. It took a while before he found something living and breathing. Against a wall in a small backstreet was a shaky mass covered in cloth. Humans saw in something called colors, so he switched to that vision mode to find out whether it looked more coherent like that. His visors revealed a blank coldness, which took him a few moments to interpret as the darkness of night. This had to be a mistake, how could anything function with so little to see?

He switched back to normal view and hunched down over the creature, lifting the top layer of cloth. It had two legs, two arms, a head, all indistinct under more layers of cloth. Prodding it, the thing grunted but did not wake.

He wasn't allowed to reveal himself to humans, but was this a human? The cunning species he had heard about couldn't possibly be so stupid to sleep unprotected in the open, or have such poor senses.

Standing up, annoyed with the lack of response, he kicked it.

Now the creature detected him. It rolled over, scrambled onto its knees and looked up. It had two eyes and a tiny mouth without mandibles, and much more of its head was covered with tresses, though they were impossibly thin. Weirdest yet was the lump in the middle of its face.

The thing stared through him as it looked around. No, this could not possibly be a human. While cloaked, Karga'te knew he should not be perfectly invisible. He decloaked right before it, and now he had its attention.

It still did nothing but stare. No shrieking, running or attacking. It just sat there, looking up and down between him and a bottle near it.

This was boring, so he kicked the bottle. It shattered in pieces as it hit the nearby wall. Still, the creature did nothing interesting. It just continued staring, then got up and walked away, muttering something along the lines of "bahwaimshuuraidend'dunkenmush".

Karga'te was perplexed. That couldn't possible be a human. They were supposed to be intelligent prey. Heck, most of the yautja apparently thought of them as the ultimate soft meat. But the behavior he had just witnessed was remarkably similar to the primitive u'khgerun. They were the only things dumb enough not to recognize danger.

He really should have had a look at the prey files, but he hadn't wanted to spoil himself with details. He liked unpredictable things. There had to be a human around here somewhere, something else that was bipedal and had eyes and tresses. Dimly, he recalled something about most of this city's outer ring being abandoned, so the actual humans probably were towards the center. As ridiculous as these buildings were, they couldn't possibly be built by that thing he had just seen. It was probably an inferior, related species, like hish were to yautja.

Maybe this city was just the remnant of a quickly built settlement for an oncoming war? It might have been a territorial battle to decide who'd get the land. In that case, the humans probably had abandoned it after the battle was settled, with only a small faction remaining for supervision. That was enough thinking for now, time to find a challenge.

Well, technically he had to return and report. But that would be boring. For the past few days he had been waiting while the mechanics tried to keep the ship in orbit while bits and pieces fell off. He needed to do something now.

He tried scanning the environment, but couldn't get anything but his alternate vision modes to work. Nothing but static appeared when he tried anything else. Pfft, stupid tech, it had worked in the desert. Now it probably was interfered with by some trivial sensitivity. Whatever, he could do fine without.

He spent some time following random trails and found more of those primitive creatures. Some inhabited houses, others scourged the streets. None were armed or interesting. It wasn't until he found several trails converging at a hatch in the ground that he got some hope for a challenge.

Lifting the lid, he peered down the vertical tunnel. A ladder led down, but it was too narrow for him to go through, much to his irritating. Along with a rancid scent of decay far more organic than on the streets, up whelmed a thick array of mixing scents that betrayed a colony of those creatures. Given their convergence here, those had to be the smarter ones. Hey, perhaps these might serve as a food source. They were formed a tad too yautjan for his preference, but the others probably would not care. He ignored the tiny little voice that said these were probably humans after all.

After some scourging around and getting stuck once, he found an entrance to the underground complex fit for his size.

Most of the tunnels has a small stream meandered through it, the deeper he went the damper it became. Well, he was water, though it would be too little for everyone on the ship. Probably contaminated too.

The pack of the creatures was ridiculously easy to find. He was certain they didn't operate on scent at all, how else could they tolerate the filth down here? Honestly, he had never seen a species live in such an unhealthy environment ... and that was coming from him.

He cloaked and kept close to the walls, ducking in a side corner when a small group of probably-not-humans passed by.

They were painfully inattentive to their environment, he constantly making loud, hiccuping noises and their heads swaying to all sides. Despite this city being fairly warm, they still all wore excessive amounts of clothing. Soft meat with soft skin, apparently.

The main lair was in a low but wide hall, which he could not enter without being spotted in its bright light. It was however surrounded by a system of pipes that he fit in, if only barely. He crawled into them until he reached a cross wired hatch, through which he got a good look.

Thick pillars supported the ceiling, and on the ground between them were metal bars from one entrance to another, running through a pit. The creatures were scattered lazily through the place, some lying about and eating or drinking, other muling around like bugs. Massive containers stood scattered through the hall, serving as small houses with makeshift doors. It had something of a hardmeat hive, but less organized. In fact, it looked like the place was made out of trash.

From one of the metal track entrances a group now emerged that commanded a pack of four legged creatures. Almost at once, these things turned their heads towards Karga'te and started hollering.

Shit. He hadn't thought these creatures would be smart enough to domesticate things that _could_ smell as sharp as was needed to be on guard. The maybe-they-were-humans-after-all responded to it with sudden alert.

He backed away from the fence till he reached a spot wide enough to turn around, then crawled as quickly as possible to the end of the pipe. Shifting to color view, he stuck to the shadows as small flocks started running down the tunnels with flashlights. Some crossed him, but as he held still his cloaking did its work.

Hide and seek was over as soon as he heard those barking creatures coming his way.

"See, I told you Arren was serious, there is some freak going round."

"We get it already. You can't blame us, Arren was stark drunk."

Karga'te wasn't precisely a thinker, but that was not the communication of a primitive sentient. These things were the humans after all, and hunting him down.

He extended his wrist blades and went into a crouch, ready to jump up when necessary. The animals locked in on him and stayed at a distance, barking endlessly. Behind them was a human, holding a flashlight, and a four more behind it.

"What the hell is that?"

At that moment, Karga'te stood up to full height and towered over the human. The unlucky fool had just enough time to yelp before Karga'te closed the distance and rammed his wristblades in its stomach.

The next moment, he was shot at. Most bullets hit the body between him and the other humans, but two scraped his arm. He roared out and tossed his kill at them, then dashed away into one of the corridors,jumping up and grabbing the pipes as soon as he was out of their sight. He hung upside down, one leg over a pipe and the other braced against the wall. Below him, the humans ran into the tunnel and looked around. Their pets didn't dare come closer, staying loudly at the edge of the tunnel. They looked up at him, but the humans were not perceptive enough to notice that.

When they came below him, he dropped down and tried to slice the head of the nearest off. It was quicker than expected though and moved, resulting in a messy cut through the skull. The others aimed at his outline and he grabbed the nearest, knocking its gun away and grabbed it by the neck. With one crunch, he tore the head out of the body.

The remaining two finally figured out they were outmatched and ran. He grabbed his contracted net and fired after them. It was a hit, the nearest human pinned to the murky ground in mid stride, its legs making a crack as it was pulled to the ground. Karga'te finished it off by stabbing it in the head, then looked for the other.

He couldn't recall it firing at him, and the fleeing part certainly made it worthy prey. Then again, he wasn't really hunting. This was all an accident and he had to take care that that human didn't cause trouble. He thrilled his mandibles together lowly and pursued.

And then realized he had no idea where it had gone. There were multiple directions it could have gone and these tunnels were full of human scent. He wasn't sure what to follow, since it had gone the direction it had come from. What little thrill he had gotten out of these kills was already ebbing away and he started breathing easier.

The pets were still noisy somewhere nearby, but he thought he heard footsteps fading away in the right tunnel, leading away from the human's lair.

He also heard more quiet footsteps much closer by, and a familiar scent reached him.

His shoulders slumped. Behind him, Nra'tex-ne tore loose the net, then there was the soft woosh of the refolding. Slowly, he turned to face his brother.

"What happened here?" his brother asked, face hidden by his mask, but his tone clear.

Karga'te ticked his mandibles and let his arms hang limp.

" _What_ happened here, Karga'te?"

"They attacked me, they had animals that could somehow detect me. I didn't know that." He tried to make it sound as if he hadn't been looking for it in the first place, but Nra'tex-ne would know better.

"You should not have been so far down in the first place. By the Black Warrior, you shouldn't even be in the city." The voice was very monotone and calm, betraying Nra'tex-ne was in an especially disappointed mood. "An unblooded with a mask equiped with technology he barely understands in an environment he never was in before ... what arrogance made you believe you could go unnoticed? Did you even try?"

"I thought they weren't humans but some weird species that had taken residence in the city, the ones I met first were acting all-" he tried, but his half-brother cut him off with a loud snarl.

Karga'te shut up while his brother started inspecting the bodies. "You've had no hunting rights, and no Elder has given you a reason to kill humans, yet you did. I trust you remember the penalty for that."

"Yes, but this was—"

"Take off your mask."

Karga'te did so, a little suspicious as he handed it over. Nra'tex-ne saw that in his face and explained :"These masks were modified to record every action you make, I'll try to erase them or you will be in far more trouble than you'll be with a broken mask."

Oh shit again. Ohtremnek had mentioned something about that, hadn't he?

Nra'tex-ne fumbled with the mask, grunted when he failed, then smashed it against a wall and tore loose a small black bit. He handed the busted thing back to Karga'te.

"You were never here, understand? Go to the desert, do not return till tomorrow afternoon. Your helmet fell down a canyon and you got lost. I will tell them I went looking in the city and didn't find you here."

He let go a breath of relief, Nra'tex-ne could be counted on again. "I have some scrapes from their weapons," he said, turning his right arm towards his brother.

Nra'tex-ne grabbed the body with the split head and pushed the corpse in Karga'te's hands. "This one smells dusty and has armor. You were attacked in the desert, that's how you lost your helmet."

"Oh, one more thing. One of them saw me and got away."

Nra'tex-ne gave an exasperated rumble. "I'll find it. What direction?"

Karga'te pointed down the tunnel. "The tunnel to the right."

__· · · · · · ·_ _

They didn't see it as murder. Bakarne had expected that much, knowing what Jormungandr had told her about these creatures. The debris that had dropped down had all but confirmed their presence, and she had had time to steel herself for it. Oihana was less fortunate, having virtually no life experience to steel herself with. It was made worse by the girl being more of an empath than anything else. Where Bakarne got specific knowledge, images and sounds in her mind's eyes, the child experienced it at a much deeper level. She took her daughter in her arms and let her cry out, offering her soothing memories to replace what she had seen and felt. The sobbing reduced to shaking soon, and she stopped clutching her head as the sensation of the injuries she had copied faded away.

"I'll be more careful to severe our view before it goes so far, should it happen again in the future. I'm sorry," Bakarne whispered. "We should tell your friends what we saw, if they are still interested. But you won't have to get involved, Oihana."

Oihana sniffled and breathed out. She stood up from the floor and walked to the window, staring out. The connection wasn't gone yet, she could still feel it where her mother didn't. One had left the city, the other one was still down there. One more person would die tonight, and her mother suggested they should let that happen. She wished she could _know_ as sharp as her mother, then she could ...

"You are not responsible, my dear."

"I could be. So I am."

Her mother stood up and walked over to her, opening the window. "Let it go. We could visit the crocodiles today, why don't we?"

Crocodiles also killed, but that was different. They needed to. This hunt was just murder.

Her mother turned sharply to her, but Oihana dodged below the reaching hand.

"Oihana!"

The girl burst through the door and jumped down the stairs, grabbing her wristband from the table. Her mother ran down the stairs, but she was already by the door before she could stop her. In her mind, Bakarne telepathically screamed for her to come back, but to Oihana this meant little more than a continues sound and the stinging awareness of her mother's concern. It didn't interfere with the far stronger sensation of fearing for life, which she felt both from the hunter who could not afford his clan to be discovered, and the prey he wrongly saw as a threat.

Switching on the wrist band and continuing to run down the slope, she said, "Mahad, are you there?"

"Oihana? It's five in the morning."

"You want to meet a hunter alien?"

He was instantly awake. "Tell me what you know."

"Send Frank over, quick, mother doesn't agree."

"He'll be there ... can you convince your mother she can't stop you? She's trying to persuade me now."

"Then call Frank quickly. He thinks I'm freakier than mom is, so he'll listen to me before her no matter what."

She kept running down the road until a car pulled up. A very groggy Frank stopped at the side of the road and threw open a door. She quickly crawled in. Zhib was on the backseat, bouncing up and down for having consumed too much coffee for his small body. It was infectious, and she felt a little better in his presence.

"So, Oihana ... why are we rushing out at the break of dawn while your mother is sharing her telepathic panic attack with all of us?"

"Oh, we're just going to save someone's life. She thinks it's too risky, but I think Jormungandr can help us pull it off."

__· · · · · · ·_ _


	3. Rat Race

**· · · · · · ·**

Lasers were strictly forbidden due to that inconvenient fact that all laser weaponry in Ghilsaer City had belonged to the cops, and one couldn't get rid of the beacon in the trigger mechanism. Still, there were times when being arrested was preferable. This was one of those times, so Carly was glad she'd handwaved her orders. Scattered throughout her coat were the pieces of a disassembled laser. Biting her lip against the pain, she quietly set together the parts. The pipe she was cramped in made it difficult to move, but it was her best position to shoot from, since right below was the entrance to the hall.

The pipe wasn't the only tight spot she was in. There was no way she could get back to her bosses and just tell them the rest of her team had been killed by a blade wielding ghosty assassin. She had run away only to realize she was being followed. It was quiet, if not was the dog following her suddenly turning quiet she wouldn't have realized those slight splashes might be footsteps.

The hall she had taken refuge in was on the outskirts of the south-west city and had a skylight that gave just enough light for her to see. This had been one of the water cleaning centers, before it was abandoned. Moss covered the walls and the basins and canals were still filled, making this unfamiliar terrain for her.

Opposite of the entrance she resided above was another, but that one was blocked entirely by a collapsed wall. There was no other way out. She knew it was a horrid place for confrontation, but there was one advantage. This place blocked a number of scanning methods by default, a security measure against water thievery back during the supply disaster. They might still work now and work against her technologically advanced enemy — she didn't believe in ghosts.

She finished assembling her gun and closed her eyes for a moment, listening. Survival first, worry about the rest later. Her enemy was quiet, transparent but not without outline, could climb really well and was huge. She probably was dealing with a very advanced android, though it was mystery what that would be doing in the underground.

Nothing of the sort appeared.

Given how fast that thing was, it should have caught up with her already. She leaned a little out of the pipe, he weapon finished and aimed downward.

Save for a few rats, absolutely nothing moved.

Then she saw it.

On the other end of the hall was lay a strange mask, its sockets facing the very entrance she was above. It lacked a nose or mouth and had a huge forehead that sloped backward, useless for a human.

Her heartbeat accelerated. That had not been there before, she had looked that way right when she entered.

It was already inside ... could she see an outline if it moved slow, or had it entered before her? Was there an entrance she didn't know about?

If it already knew she was here, she didn't want to be caught with no way no escape. She took a deep breath and slipped out of the pipe, quietly lowering her feet on the ridge below it. She lost her balance of the slippery stone and that saved her life. A spear bore into the wall, missing her back and only cutting open her shoulder. Instinctively she tore loose her clothing and looked up.

Somehow balancing on the narrow space above the pipes was the outline, crouched right above her. It tore loose the spear and Carly slipped over the ledge, hanging by her fingers and narrowly avoiding another stab from the spear. There were some water draining ledge covered by moss, some diagonal. Setting her feet on these she slipped down the mossy wall.

Her enemy just jumped down all the way, landing on its feet. It would have a great aim from down there. Only one way to go. It was a long fall, her heels seemed to splinter on impact, but she pushed herself off the ground and rolled to lose the impact's energy.

She didn't look for the monster, and didn't dive into the exit. In the darkness, she would be able to see even less. She wasn't exactly the best aim either, she needed distance and light if she was going to shoot anything.

As she tried to stand, she noticed the distortion in the light from above. Instinctively she flattened against the ground, but the blades still cut across her back. She rolled away from it, farther from the sound of the spear hitting the ground as it missed twice. When it missed the third time, she grabbed the spear and was pulled up as it withdraw its weapon. For a moment it seemed confused, just long enough for her to dart right past it.

It turned right away, but she already had the three seconds she needed to aim. Android wouldn't function without the head, so that was where she aimed. She hit it, but the head was very broad and something fanned out aside of it, maybe elaborate clothing. Whatever she had hit didn't seemed to damage it. It just roared.

Right there, Carly realized she wasn't dealing with an android. Irrationally she thought that maybe she couldn't harm it at all, and before she could shoot again, it charged for her. She spun around and jumped in the nearest canal. The water was stinging cold and the gun in her hand didn't help her to swim. Coupled with her soaking clothing, she was pulled under.

There was a slight steam that carried her along, pushing her against a fence where the water entered the hall. With her one free hand, she pulled out of the water and took a deep breath.

The outline stood where she had jumped in, its head whipping towards her only now. The water was illuminated fairly by the skylight. It had no trouble seeing her before, so why had it not spotted her as she moved in the water?

It didn't see in color. Either it navigated by sound, scent or something else, but in the water it couldn't see her. She dove under again.

**· · · · · · ·**

Oihana scaled the walls with relative ease; going by collapsed catwalks would take too long. She weighed least, so it was her job to climb and turn any mechanism on. Jormungandr had virtually hijacked the water plant's systems a few days ago, but physically didn't have the option to really use it and it lacked access even for that in most regions. Right now, they were trying to turn on a generator of an abandoned sector, so Jormungandr could use the computer to exert control. Oihana just followed what instructions Frank gave her, for now. Without her mother, she couldn't get any more than a rough feeling in what direction they had to go, so they'd have to rely on Jormungandr.

"What if this section is blank too?" she heard Melanie ask in an effort to drive away the silence.

"It's our best guess," said Mahad said. "The tank may-" Melanie turned on some music in her wristband and started humming along, effectively communicating disinterest in the explanation.

Oihana was in the middle of wrenching with a stuck when Zhib's voice came from all three wristbands, plus Mahad's laptop. Oihana startled and nearly lost her footing, at the same time receiving a flash vision of a similar thing having happened not too long ago, not too far away.

"Jor's gonna reroute some energy, kay? Should be in a minute," the boy's voice said.

"Okay," Oihana whispered. Zhib always had a knack of calling at the wrong times. Frank and him were still up in the car, Frank having been too nervous to join them, and Zhib being just too small and caffeinated.

Oihana finished up and she waited till she heard the machine on, then she climbed down. After the whole operated, she was covered in moss smudges.

Lights flickered on, illuminating the central hall of the water system of this district. Pumps started working and Mahad set his laptop down on a rock, whispering voice commands that the computer obeyed quickly. A map of the entire aquatic network appeared, tunnels and canals turning blue as Jormungandr scanned them. The AI reported that some of the distorters still worked, which might enhance the survival chances of the target, though it made it more difficult to track them.

Oihana was pretty sure the hunter's prey still lived; she had a weapon and was smart. She'd gone into the water, though ...

"Got it. They're most likely in the cleansing facilities, some scanners detected a human passing by and later an unknown entity. The cleansing halls have distorter, Jor can't see inside," Mahad said.

"Oihana?" Melanie asked.

"She's still alive, but she's not okay."

"They are heat dependent, right?" Melanie asked. "What of Jor lowers the temperature?"

"It might slow the hunter down," Oihana said. "But also her. She's cold, I think she's in the water."

"Well, she'll need to get out of that anyway."

"Can't we warm the water, so she can stay in?" Frank asked.

"Eh, we're on a desert planet. Nobody in their right minds installs a system to warm water. There's only a cooling system."

"And then what?"

"He doesn't have a gun, we have some time. This one's more honorable," Oihana said. "If we can get there in time ... do we know anything about their language, Jor?"

"Totally!" Zhib happily said. "Gonna download soon, Mahad."

Mahad nodded. "Good ... so ... let's make contact and negotiate," Mahad said, excitement not half as obvious on his face as he actually felt. Oihana leeched a little off it, it was preferable to Frank's anxiety or Melanie's skeptic caution. Too bad Zhib's next message ruined it.

"Jor says that if the alien has a sufficiently advanced system, it is offline right now. He can't contact it. You just gonna have to go look." Inbetween the child's voice, they heard Frank in the background, muttering something about suicidal people.

"Why would we? They consider us lowlife...why would we take a chance at all?" said Melanie.

"Ah, come on, we've discussed this before, Mel. If it's no so called badblood, nothing can happen when we are unarmed, right? And-"

"Somebody's about to die. Could we go now?" said Oihana, feeling irritation of her own. She turned around and ran.

Mahad sighed. "Always running without waiting. Come on, Mel. Jor, lower the temperature in all unseen areas."

**· · · · · · ·**

Nra'tex-ne sorely wished for a plasma caster. He had not carried any since his tribe was absolutely not fond of shooting things unless the prey was something where speed was its only strength. They had not expected any such prey here, so he had not come equipped with any ranged weaponry beyond his spear. He sorely regretted that now.

The human had figured out how he saw and was staying below the surface. He had retrieved his mask, previously left to even out the field a little. It helped him nothing. Something was jamming his controls and he couldn't shift to other vision modes.

Well, then this would be more of a challenge, so be it. Irritated, he tossed the mask.

It sometimes surfaced at a random spot to try and shoot him. It clearly could see, but its aim was off. The cold seemed to affect it in a similar way as it did Nra'tex-ne. His own movements turned sluggish, and he could swear the temperature was actually dropping.

It didn't take much longer before a loud splash drew his attention. Apparently the cold was finally too much and the human fled from the water. It was right ahead and turning to fire at him, just the right distance to use his netting gun. He took a small sprint and jumped across the canal.

It shot first.

The laser didn't hit him as much as it his one of the cores of his cloaking, causing an unpleasant jolt across his kin. It off-balanced him just enough to upset his land, when his foot landed on the other end, he stumbled and that second was enough for another clear shot, this one burning off a thin strip of skin in his arm. At the same moment, his stiff muscles got stuck between 'keep balance' and 'clutch injury', causing him to lose that last bit of balance to kept him on the edge. He toppled into the water.

Oh, this was _so not_ going to be mentioned in the stories to his children.

He could not let the freezing water have a chance at him and quickly climbed out again. His cloaking was now entirely malfunctioning. Wonderful, highly advanced technology much?

The human was scrambling up the rubble pile, an easy target. This time he did not hesitate to use the netting gun. His aim was on, and the only reason the human didn't die yet was the embarrassing little fact he had forgotten how to alter the settings. He really should have gotten more acquainted with all this new tech.

**· · · · · · ·**

What emerged from the water was humanoid, but certainly not human. The monster was yellowish running out to light brown on the outer side of its arms and legs, striped with brown patches, and the edge of a huge, crested head with thick hair coming from it. Its mouth was some wrinkly flaps around four single toothed mandibles.

That was a face that mask could fit on, and all she could do was looking at it. The net didn't leave much of a choice to escape the wristblades coming her way.

Its wires strapped around her limbs and pinned her to the rubble, anchoring itself with hooks and digging her back into the sharp rock.

She set all her strength against the net in an attempt to get her arms free. The material sure wasn't normal rope, it cut like metal into her flesh, but she had no intention of just dying like a paralyzed animal.

The monster approached cautiously at first, but when it noticed she couldn't fire anything, its step increased. When it towered above her, she got the absurd idea to ask what it wanted by killing random people. Nah, just better to shoot it. Casting a glance aside, she noticed the rubble couldn't be too stead. As the monster partially knelt to get a more solid stance and drew the blades back, she braced against a steady rock. The upward motion helped her jerk free her gun arm.

It predicted her movement, her shot missed its ugly face by an inch. A clawed hand grabbed for the gun, but she shot it in the arm this time. The movement had it lose balance again, and it stumbled back. The loosening rocks upset the anchors of the net and Carly could twist aside just before the blades came down.

"Hey, uhm...you there!"

Both her and the monster looked back into the hall.

There by the canal stood a young girl, of all things.

The monster made an almost whiny sound and Carly called, "Get outta here!"

"It's going to be okay! Don't kill her!" the girl called as she started running to a small bridge. In response, the monster stood up and tilted its head as the girl approached them. It kept a hesitant eye on Carly, but didn't try to impale her again. In fact, it sheathed the blades. What the hell?

Not that she wanted the killing but to happen, but this just about topped the absurdity of today.

The girl stopped at the edge of the rubble and the monster jumped down, coming to a halt before her. She was maybe ten or so and absolutely dwarfed by the monster, who growled angrily at her but did not strike.

She finally showed some healthy fear, but only took a step back and looked over at Carly. "Give him your gun, now!"

"Are you crazy?" was all her baffled self could bring out.

At that moment, two more people emerged into the hall. The monster's head whipped towards them and he roared. While the two stopped, Carly started again. She continued kicking the rubble and got her other leg free at the cost of more cuts. As quickly as she could, she slipped from below the net and started climbing out of gut instinct and the hope she might create an opening there.

"Give him your gun! He won't harm you then! Do it!" another someone from further down the hall.

Looked back, she saw the monster hesitate between them and her. Maybe it just didn't know what to do first, but there was an overpowering feeling that they were right.

It seemed so utterly ridiculous, all she had to do was surrender?

Her fingers loosened around her gun and she tossed it down the rubble.

**· · · · · · ·**

Nra'tex-ne was at total loss with this turn of events. By all means, the Nirevé Tribe code allowed him to execute any witnesses would such witnesses endanger the general safety of the clan and pose the risk of their technology falling in the wrong hands. Especially in a case such as this, with an entire ship crashlanded near a human city.

Yet this was so obviously surrender. Killing a sapient creature that surrendered, acknowledging its weakness, that just did not set well with his idea of how the code of honor worked.

More baffling yet was how these new humans had understood this. The one he had hunted sure needed to be told. Throughout his years of hunting humans, he had never encountered any that seemed so certain in the presence of a yautja, or who could guess what would make him personally cease to attack. Under normal circumstances, he would have left.

A strange, creeping feeling overcame him that yes, these humans were very much aware of the yautja as more than a vague legend of the past.

If they knew he was here and understood what hunters were, this could endanger his clan even more than a random sighting. Certain human factions, he had been told, were aware of the yautja and hunted them in return.

But these were children, not trained warriors.

It really was biting his sense of honor, kill them and keep his people safe from discovery, or leave and save his honor? Was life something worth without real honor?

The taller of the two humans at the center of the hall stepped forward and reached down. Nra'tex-ne didn't realized until it stood straight that it had picked up his mask, now clearly outlined against its warm form.

He snarled a warning, and the human quickly stepped to the edge of the canal and tossed him the helmet. He had trouble seeing it and the stiffness was still there, so he failed to catch it and it clattered somewhere to the left of him ... far to the left. The human had horrible aim, or it was mocking him.

Small steps aside of him caught his attention. The human child ran forward and picked up the helmet, handing it to him. She pointed at it right aside of the eyes, where he knew the scanner hardware to be. How could it even know that?

He placed on the helmet and tried turning on the scanner.

It worked as it should, in all modes.

Not only that, it had stopped getting colder.

Nra'tex-ne got the distinct feeling he wasn't the only one who'd been playing. Since when did the prey have control of the environment on which the hunter pursued? Meidache had been right, the Nirevé Tribe was far behind when it came to technology. Maybe a more tech savvy hunter would have known this; how often had he hunted humans without noticing this kind of thing?

In fact, why was his helmet _uploading and downloading_?

He wanted to stop it, but was miserably behind the times and had no idea how. There was a first hint of real panic. Ohtremnek had explained him some out cyberspace, whatever it got out of his helmet could be on the other side of the planet by now. These humans were somehow doing this, it had to be. The tallest one carried a flat piece of equipment that emitted heat, probably some sort of computer.

Extending his wrist blades again, he jumped across the canal. The human backed off clumsily and he stepped right after, rumbling deeply.

An absurd sense of danger entered him right then. There was nothing remotely threatening about the cowering human, but something silently screamed that he shouldn't kill it, because it would cause problems.

Nra'tex-ne spun around, but there was nothing to be found in the hall. The laser weapon was still on the floor, and the scanner revealed no new arrivals.

_\- leave -_

The word flashed in bright yautjan letters across his visor.

_\- silence -_

_\- we silence -_

That they couldn't have just learned from his helmet. They really did know about the yautja.

That meant there was no point in killing any of them, who knew how much others were aware of this event?

If they knew yet had come without weapons or any attempt to capture him, despite being able to mess with the temperature to a deliberating degree, perhaps they really meant it. They would remain silent about what they had seen.

Perhaps he really just wanted to believe that because killing any creature that was unworthy did not set well with him, especially if it concerned children. At least one of these three was still not mature.

He was moving aware before he'd really made a conscious decision.

The humans didn't move to follow or say anything else, but when he left the hall, he could hear them breath out in relief.

**· · · · · · ·**

Carly skeptically looked at her saviors. Two teenagers and a girl of nine or ten. They were subtly situated around the tall black teen boy, apparently their leader. A middle class kid with an interest in technology and science fiction, if the t-shirt print was anything to go by. That laptop wasn't going to close anytime soon.

He took a deep breath and laughed nervously. "I thought he'd attack me there."

"If he wanted that, he'd have done it more efficiently than poking you," the redhead said as she rolled her eyes. She had neatly cut shoulder length hair and fine clothing, Carly knew the class when she saw it. This was someone she'd rob if she had the chance.

"Hey, he _was_ hunting people who hadn't harmed him just before. You never know."

"He _wasn't_ hunting. He was silencing. They'd seen his brother and that could betray them," said the brown girl, who wore clothing randomly thrown and who was too calm and knew too much.

None of them looked like they would normally hang out together, let alone could they possibly be anything like a secret task force experienced in dealing with aliens. They looked downright comical, standing there being all grinning and airy about the fact there were murderous aliens in the city.

"Sure, betray them to the authorities. You'd sooner have those believe in the sewer alligators," the black teen said. He then looked up at Carly. "Hey, you, come down, we can check on your wounds if you want!"

She waited a second longer, still unsure of the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Oh well. She slid down the rubble and grabbed her weapon, clutching it at she stared at the exit.

"I'm fine," she muttered, not looking at them anymore. "So, you geeks obviously knew what that thing was. Enlighten me."

"Come with us first, we have a car upstairs. We'll explain while we treat your wounds."

"I am in no hurry. You can talk here, enjoy the aesthetics, give me a better idea what happens if that monster changes its mind."

"First come with us," he said, then raised his wristband and spoke to it, "Hey, Frank, can you drop Zhib off at your home? It should be between the nearest exit in this area and where you are."

"I don't think so," Carly snapped. "Something turned the water cold, yet this plant has been abandoned for years. You had more help than just the psychic freak over there." She pointed a thumb at the brown girl.

"Jormungandr helped us," said the redhead, frowning. "You may have heard of him.

Carly couldn't help with grin in disbelief. "Like in, that lovely little A.I. System that's been terrorizing cyberspace for decades? Heck yeah, that explains it all. Government can't catch the freaking thing, but it does chores for a bunch of geeks. _Off course_."

The teens started grinning smugly. "Jormungandr isn't interested in social expectations or status, he picks his friends on a different account."

"Oh really?" She would have said more if not for the content of her stomach coming up. Cold and nerves finally caught up with her and she barely managed to clasp a hand before her mouth. Hunching down, she vomited.

A small hand touched her shoulder. "You should come now," the girl gently said.

"Aliens, physics...why not Jormungandr?" muttered Carly, before shrugging the girl's hand away and wiping her mouth. "Tell your snake buddy that the next time he cools down this place, he should check first whether someone's _in_ the water. Crap, the only reason I get away with moving is that I can't feel my wounds."

"He did that to save you. Cold slows those creatures down," the redhead said. "Speaking of cold, why don't we go up to our warm car?"

Carly stood up. Well, there was only one exit.

She noticed the redhead holding up a wide bracelet around her arm to her for a moment, with a tiny square in it. Fancy equipment there.

"What is your name?" asked the redhead, staring at a larger panel on the inside of her wrist.

"My name is None of Your Business."

"According to the picture of you I just gave to our 'snake buddy', your name is Carly Markens and the last time you've been registered is six years ago. I suppose it is safe to assume you will not go to the authorities about this incident?"

"Authorities? Hell no! I can't even return to my gang. Morons," she said with a dismissive hand wave.

"You cannot go back? Why not?" asked Mahad, actually sounding concerned.

Carly raised an eyebrow. "For geeks you can't figure out much. Let me spell it out : my squad dead. Me not dead. Me no plausible explanation for them dead. Me not have good reputation anyway. Me go back, me in lotsa trouble. Does that compute? "

With that, she marched past them, but tripped when her foot got stuck in one of the mini-canals. She fell on her arms, but quickly pushed herself on her knees when she heard Mahad approach to give her a hand.

"Look, we've got a car. If you won't come along for treatment, can we at least bring you anywhere?"

Carly had to admit she wasn't going anywhere quickly, not like this.

"My granma's place. My troop doesn't know of her. Granpa lost it completely by now and she won't tell."

Mahad nodded, then his wristband beeped. Carly noted they all had one of these things.

"You don't have a living grandmother," Mahad said suspiciously.

"Not my blood grandma, I'm from a tube ..." Now she was turned to face them, she saw she had left a trail of blood. Dammit. "Does that offer to help me with my wounds still count?"

**· · · · · · ·**

"Something alerts the dogs, we find all scouts dead save for Carly. Sounds like someone was spying, got smelled, and had the fortune to have an ally amongst the scouts." Connor's voice was cold and Jarrod could clearly hear the threat in it. Connor did not like it when anyone messed with his people.

"Carly can't use bladed weapons like that," was all Jarrod said.

"Someone else might. Multiple someone elses. We'll examine the corpses to see what exactly happened. Jarrod, I can't say anything to where your allegiance lies, but I hope we find out soon. If you meet your cousin anywhere, bring her here."

Those words held the silent promise that Connor did give Carly the benefit of doubt, in whatever slight way. He reached for his phone and turned it open.

There was one new message.

**· · · · · · ·**


	4. Wrong Answer

**· · · · · · ·**

_2556 July 10  
_

****· · · · · · ·** **

Nearly six rotations of the planet had passed and the situation on the Nirevéh ship steadily worsened. They were supposed to be prepare for whenever their newfound enemy would strike, but amidst the corpses they couldn't dispose of, the lack of medicine, the food running low and the constant danger of the ship imploding and the repairs that did not progress, there was no thought to spare for strategy.

Some were spending thoughts on rivalry though when they really shouldn't. There was no open rivalry between the Houses of the Nirevéh tribe, but right now the Hukcha'mengache Stve and the Nataeloixren Mra houses were starting to scratch at each others throats. Rebellion brewed in the pit, where the leadership of the females was felt least at this time.

All this left Nra'tex-ne with a troubled mind, for he feared that even if they survived, his clan would have lost its integrity along the way. This disaster seemed to bring out the honorless side in everyone. Yet there was so little he could do. He'd been repeating that to himself for days, in between cleaning his weapons and breaking up fights in the halls. Somewhere the elders and the matriarchs held council still, and their lack of answer meant he always cycled back to those same thoughts.

He _had_ to repeat it, because there was one noxious, disgraceful idea in his head that just wouldn't shut up.

A much needed interruption presented itself today when his door opened to let Karga'te slip in. Technically, his brother as an unblooded had no permission to come by uninvited, not in this section of the ship, but since when did Karga'te care? The protocol didn't matter, and judging by his still bleeding wounds, order didn't either.

The young yautja flexed his limbs, then fell back on Nra'tex-ne's bed and relaxed, letting out a wide yawn. So terribly, terribly disrespectful. And he was so not going to chastise him for it.

In fact, Karga'te wasn't a good disruption at all. His brother's law flaunting attitude was only encouraging that idea. Irritably he growled, hoping to get the unblooded's attention and make him scram.

Karga'te nonchalantly waved his hand. "Gotta sleep for a bit, lemme be."

Nra'tex-ne spun his growl out in a long, whining noise. It didn't take Karga'te long to get vexed.

"Dammit, Nra'tex-ne, can't you let me rest for a bit?"

"No. I'm sure there's something useful you can do."

"Yes, Meidache told me it would be useful if I'd get out of the way."

"You're in the way here."

Karga'te still didn't get up and casually said, "Anything I can bribe you with to let me stay?"

"The routine of the guards on the east side." He knew Karga'te was just joking, but was out before he could stop himself.

Karga'te sat up at once and tilted his head curiously. "Why would you need me to find that out when you as a very honored warrior are more likely to get an answer?"

"Can you find out _without_ asking anyone directly, or not?" Seriously, why was he still talking?

Karga'te curled his mandibles up, leaning forward with an amused expression. "Easily. Do I also have to use my connections to find out what you want with that information?"

Judging from his brother's tone, Nra'tex-ne knew he could not get away without explaining, but he could bargain.

"Later."

Karga'te crossed his arms and straightened his back. "My big brother, sneaking out, breaking the rules? Oh, I see why you are worried for the clan's honor...if it's getting even to _your_ head."

Nra'tex-ne snarled sharply. "Mock neither me nor the clan, brother."

Karga'te remained profoundly unimpressed. Really, why did he even bother? His brother had long since learned Nra'tex-ne wasn't particularly prone to really lash out, and he exploited that. His brother was of rotten blood, even now he no longer was a humiliated servant.

"We could say I sneaked out again and you went to search for me. I return quickly, so I don't get punished too much, and then you go do whatever you want out there. Now, enwarm me to your genius plot?"

Nra'tex-ne sighed, sitting down on a chair opposite of the bed. He could cite a lot of codes that should prevent him from even uttering this idea. It was blasphemous, almost.

"I did not kill the human that escaped you."

" _You_ failed?" Karga'te said, his mandibles widening in disbelief. "No wonder you're so tensed. If it talked, we could be swarmed by armed humans soon. If they indeed have those metal warriors, we'd be dead meat."

"I didn't fail," he barked back. "It placed its weapon down, and then others appeared that could communicate with me, somehow. They promised silence. Maybe I believed them too easily, maybe I just wanted an excuse not to go through with a non-hunt kill. But one thing is sure ... they're willing to talk."

Karga'te gave him a blank stare. "I'm sorry, what? How?"

"How? How the hell should I know? I've only had this mask system for a few weeks," said Nra'tex-ne.

Now he thought about it, there was something eerie about humans having a better idea of how to handle his technology than he himself did. The Nirevéh tribe was very traditional even now they had returned to space travel and advanced hunting, and for the longest time the mask he'd worn only enhanced heat sight. The new system had been implemented to even out the field with the other clan, now they would do a conjoined hunt.

_Would_ have. If not humans, that clan would overrun them soon. A clan that understood technology far better than the Nirevéh did. This reinforced his withering resolve.

His brother recognized the change in expression and flatly said, "You mean it. You want to ask the humans for help."

He nodded.

Karga'te abruptly stood up. "While I'm gone, you think up some other excuse than fetching my disobedient ass."

It was Nra'tex-ne's turn to say, "What?"

"I am going too. You are crazy, brother, and I have no idea how you plan to make this work, but I'll be there if you screw up."

Nra'tex-ne tried telling himself he could cut it off. He could choose not to go even if he had the information.

Just sit here, wait, die in a plasma bomb or a rebellion or by starvation. No matter what way it would be death in dishonor and the rivaling clan would spread the word that they were bad bloods.

And he was very much not going to listen to himself, for once.

"Alright. I'm guessing you're dragging your friends in this too?"

****· · · · · · ·** **

Ohtremnek did his utmost best to keep the delicate balance of the spring. If it went wrong again, he'd have to dislodge everything and start anew because the stupid spring would inevitably drop to the bottom of the machine.

The door to the cramped storage room hissed open, accompanied by a his name roared. Helplessly, the young yautja saw the spring fall two centimeters down and clatter against the bottom of the scanner. With a very low and threatening growl, he slowly turned his head.

"Ghuran, I hear you perfectly well if you talk at a normal volume."

Painfully oblivious to the threat, Ghuran said, "So, what's going on?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Ohtremnek hoped his expression conveyed what he thought of Ghuran; the stupid oaf should know that he'd been here in here for over a day. Any news would be lost on him since this room had no working communicator route.

"Karga'te has been confined and the old guy got sent down to the pit to calm down the mess! I wanna know why."

"Nothing worth roaring about." Turning to his new found obsession again, Ohtremnek continued dismembering the scanner. Karga'te always got into trouble, and they probably blamed Nra'tex-ne for it as well this time, so they'd given him a menial job? That seemed to fit, though it was rare Nra'tex-ne ever got involved.

"Nra'tex-ne is supposed to lead an accusation against Hukcha."

Ohtremnek's mind made a U-turn and decided his little gadget could wait. Hurling an accusation at another yautja, let alone a group, was tantamount to a challenge to a fight. That didn't line up at all with Nra'tex-ne being sent to calm down anyone.

"Ghuran, try to think for a moment, why did they confine Karga'te?"

"Grrruh ... no idea. It just smelled ratty."

Ohtremnek stood up and calmly put aside his gadget, looking over the shelves for something. The storage room was one of technology and weapons, many of which the rest of the clan had not tried out. The four classic houses of the Nirevéh tribe were technologically so far behind with the rest of the yautja culture, and curious mandibles only now began to sniff around again. This place was a convenient mess for that reason, allowing Ohtremnek to hide his constructions. Finding the few he wanted, he quickly stuffed them in his bag.

"Come on, Ghuran, I'll need your help."

"For what?" he asked gruffly. "Why would I do it?"

"You'll find out soon why, I think you'll even enjoy it."

****· · · · · · ·** **

Nra'tex-ne understood why he was in this position and it was justice. His plan was ridiculous. He should never have involved Karga'te. Asking humans for help was not only degrading, it was treachery against the Code. They were a prey species.

Meidache had figured out Nra'tex-ne was involved pretty quickly, for why else would Karga'te need to know about a route out where a yautja of higher rank had no business wandering?

It shamed him he had not dared tell Meidache just how far his idea went, but if he had, the punishment would be worse. Karga'te was beaten and confined for having plans to go out and Meidache just thought they wanted to go to the city for finding food for themselves. Nra'tex-ne had himself to blame for this, he understood that.

His sister didn't put it on record what she knew and instead posed him a challenge. Nra'tex-ne was free to go, and he could sneak out of the ship if he wanted to and lose his honor along the way. Or he could stay and stand in the middle of this confrontation, honorably following a superior's command.

In the end, when one stood before the Black Warrior and her judgment, honor was all that mattered.

The same honor also meant that accusing others of being liars would not be taken lightly, a concern far more immediate than the distant Black Warrior.

The kehrite took up most of the lower levels and had been divided and into two halves according to the two houses. At the center was a shared room for sparring, which had been largely undamaged due to its distance from the hull. Here most unblooded had gathered. Close to the walls lay the injured, towards the rings the center were the troublemakers that he and two other hunters now faced.

His house was accused of keeping medicine back, and here he was, rebuking this accusation under the many weary, angered eyes and the stench of infection.

"I repeat, what proof can you give that your side is _not_ holding back medicine?" said a single unblooded yautja, talking back before three blooded warriors. He would have been sliced into pieces in any other situation.

"During the clearing of the ship members of both houses were present everywhere. Can you explain why no one of Hukcha'mengache Stve delivers solid evidence of this supposed misconduct?" one of his fellow warriors barked back.

"You came aboard this ship months before us. You know it better, you could've hidden them somewhere."

And back to the start, this wasn't getting anywhere except a fight, given the increasing anxiety in the pit. Nra'tex-ne and the other two stood on their claimed side of the kehrite, which felt unsafe, but as a blooded warrior he had no business backing away. Better to be the one to make the first move.

"Then let us even this out in combat. There are three of us, we will meet you in battle, and if we lose you will be allowed to search the quarters of the our house as far as my rank goes," said Nra'tex-ne, receiving annoyed glares from his two companions.

"Why would we accept that challenge? You all were blooded many hunts ago. It would not be a fair fight." He didn't seem to be the kind that liked to go beyond words in a situation such as this... off course. The weakest barked loudest.

"Let it be two against one if you want, three against me if it needs to be. But talking isn't getting us anywhere."

"No ... this isn't a matter of honor in battle being disputed, but the honor of our words. Why would we have to _earn_ our right to know? Why don't you go right to the elders if you don't agree with what we know?" One of the other two gave a warning snarl and the unblooded took a half step back, but didn't lower his head.

Nra'tex-ne became aware of an increased shifting of feet all around. The next second, one of his house's unblooded jumped up and shouted, "Coward, coward! Honor above all, and you don't call for it!"

The Hukcha side didn't take that lying down. Before any of the three Warriors could intervene, unblooded from both sides had taken up weapons and ran at each other. Nra'tex-ne tried to break up the nearest fight, but this only turned the Hukcha aggression on him, as they thought he was helping his house. The musk of blind anger whelmed up and Nra'tex-ne almost lost his head to it. Three unblooded came at him and he blocked their experience attacks with ease, and when the first fell unconscious by a blow to the head, he roared out as if this had been anything like a fair match.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was getting out of bounds, but when he heard someone nearby snarl that liars deserved no fair match, he answered with another roar and lashed out at the nearest attacker. That one was left with a huge gash across his chest. Another tried to pin him on a spear, leaving a widely undefended spot to his right which Nra'tex-ne immediately used to deliver a stomp in his ribcage. As the youngling curled from the pain, Nra'tex-ne grabbed the spear and rammed it backward into the leg of another attacker.

A miniature war enveloped him and his two companions. Those without weapons fought with raw strength and claws, releasing the agitation that had been bottling up for many days. Nra'tex-ne, despite all his capacity to reason, was drowning in it no less than the others. An instinctive fight it became, without contemplation like a good battle should be, just defend and take down the insolent little brats. In his fury he was wounded more than just a few times, but all were mere scratches, unlike what he brought upon those who made the mistake to cross him. He was quick, he was skilled. They weren't...this was like having plain old fun, like when he was young and taunting the eta children.

As that thought crossed his mind, a little wave of rationality surfaced again and he lingered in his attack. He found himself with an enraged, starved looking youngblood before him, collapsed to his feet and clutching his side, the tell-tale scent of Hukcha about him. Nra'tex-ne vaguely remembered the blow he had landed into the armorless youngblood. Broken ribs... what was he _doing_ here?

Those moments of thought cost him. When one of the Hukcha picked up a throwing disc that one of his companions had lost, he noticed too late. The disc missed his arm as he moved out of the way, but he could not avoid it as it bounced off a pillar and cut straight into his upper leg, only hindered slightly by his armor.

He dropped through his leg and barely braced his arm against the floor. The cut ran deep, at least partially through his rectus femoris. The disk had embedded itself in a support pillar behind him, he quickly grabbed it. Before the young Hukcha could use the spear, he had thrown it, but his awkward position on the ground affected his aim. His enemy had an almost gloating expression and prepared to strike, but almost at once was grabbed by two unblooded of his own house. Nra'tex-ne saw the knife one of them held too late and had to watch as the Hukcha was murdered.

One of his 'helpers' came to him with a hand stretched out, but he hit it away. "Murderer," he hissed. "What's gotten into you all? You could have restrained him without dealing death!"

"But he was going to kill you in a dishonorable way!"

Nra'tex-ne growled and tried standing up, but a sharp pain shot through his leg.

"Only the elders and the matriarchs have authority to decide that!"

Before he got any further, a might roar silenced the entire kehrite. All faces turned to the south entrance, where one of the elder Hukcha'mengache Stve matriarchs towered.

Threateningly calm, she asked, "What is going on here?

When none responded, she hissed, "Cowards!" With three steps, she had grabbed the nearest yautja by the throat. "Answer me."

"The...the Nataeloixren Mra sent three of their warrior to discuss, er ... the rumor that their house had been keeping back medicines."

"Oh, honestly? They send warriors to talk with the unblooded instead of our ranked warriors? How interesting, what ever does that say about Nataeloixren Mra's courage?" The thinly veiled insult lingered in the air and muffled growls were heard from the other end of the hall, but none dared challenge her.

She looked around and when she spotted the nearest Nataeloixren Mra warrior, she ordered him to step forth. "Speak up. What is your version?"

"We did not come to discuss anything, we were merely send to ensure none of our unblooded would begin any fights over this _rumor,_ " said the warrior, head lowered.

"Nataeloixren Mra should know better than to send high rank warriors to keep the mood up, this only works provocative. Go back to your side of the ship, warrior, and take those who came with you along. Tell your ranked supervisors we want a word with them," she said with a warning growl. "And clean this mess up, it's disgraceful!"

Nra'tex-ne was grateful he wasn't the one to stand before a matriarch in this disgraceful state, that warrior's face would be remembered by her. He sat back for a moment, leaning against the pillar. The unblooded still stood before him hesitantly.

"She told you to leave. Shall I escort you to sickbay?"

To heal it with _what_ medicine? The sickbay was already packed.

The other two warriors approached him and shooed away the unblooded. One of them placed a hand under his arm and helped him stand. Nra'tex-ne put as little weight on his injured leg as he bit back a new shot of pain. He could just feel his dignity slip away as he hopped out of the kehrite.

The cold outside the kehrite added to the pain, yet Nra'tex-ne almost welcomed it. The effect was numbing. He asked the other warrior — if they'd remembered to introduce themselves, he'd forgotten — to let him stay here. The request was found strange, but granted when Nra'tex-ne urged them to report to the elders. When he was alone, he removed the remnant of the upper leg plates and carefully examined the wound.

This was going to be a problem.

"Dammit, Tex, I was planning to intercept you on the way to sickbay." Nra'tex-ne looked up to find his brother rounding the corner. Behind him were his two friends, Ohtremnek and Ghuran. All of them were decked in their battle armor and wearing their helmets.

Karga'te quickly put an arm below his shoulder, Ghuran went to his other side. Before Nra'tex-ne could object, they were hauling him around the corner they'd come from. "Let's hope nobody comes out of the kehrite right now."

"And why would that be, Karga'te?"

Karga'te only shrugged, but Ghuran blurted out, "Karga'te says you know how to contact the humans, and get us the food we need?"

Ohtremnek hit him on the back of his head. "For the twentieth time, if they're sapient and honorable it's a good possibility, but first we need to find them."

"What? No! Meidache has forbid ... don't laugh, Karga'te."

Karga'te clattered his mandibles nonetheless. "Oh please, bother, cut it out with the devotion to the rules. I'm not a teke following a stranger's lead, especially not when they're wrong. I reckon you recall your human's scent?"

"Off course I do, but I will not go. It has been forbidden and you might want to take _a look at my leg_. We would be caught within a mile and the punishment would be very severe."

A small group of unblooded came down the hall, anxiously discussing the fight. Karga'te swore under his breath, they were going the wrong way for sickbay.

Ohtremnek pulled them down the nearest hall and made the hand signal for cold; the group likely hadn't seen them yet since the'd been standing closer to the warm wall and hadn't worn masks. The group passed into another hall as they kept quiet.

As soon as the sound was gone, Ohtremnek pulled something out of a bag across his back. A small bottle appeared in his hand, along with a narrow knife. It was medicinal goo.

"They will not be following us anytime in the next few hours," Karga'te said with a mischievous undertone. "If they would announce housewide that four yautja have defected, the Hukcha would find out. They will demand a share in the hunt on us for their own safety...and how will the Elders of our house explain why your wound does not leave a blood trail, or how you were able to move so fast in the first place? And once they find us, they would find something they don't want to be found."

"At least, they won't follow until they can credibly claim you found human medicine that did the trick and for the desert to have erased your trail. We should have at least ten local days," Ohtremnek added as he closed the bottle again. "Down where we will leave is a room where you can apply this."

Nra'tex-ne couldn't believe it, he tried not to believe it. But with a yautja smirk, Karga'te continued :"Our house _has_ been keeping medicine back, brother. They argue that it was their medicine to begin with. How I got to it you shouldn't ask... let's say the place I was locked up was pretty conveniently located, and Ohtremnek is quite a curious fellow."

"You young fools. If they find us, we will be killed. We would be endangering the tribe's safety,we would have violated a direct order of ... stop laughing, Ghuran, this is a matter of honor!"

"You said 'we', brother. Now come on. You know there is no honor in dying here by our own hands. We need food, and we have a unique chance to ask for it, get it in an honorable way even."

Karga'te couldn't care less for honor; he was in it for the thrill. But there was some truth in his words. Honor seemed to be decaying as the situation on the ship worsened. Dying like this, their name tainted forever, was not a dignified prospect.

He let them bring him down to that room, where Ohtremnek applied the medicine. As soon as the blood carried it onwards, the wound started to pull more close and the blood thickened. Nra'tex-ne gritted his mandibles in pain, but managed to keep his roaring in. He still wouldn't be able to jump and run fast, but now a numb feeling set in, he would at least be able to move without much hindrance from pain. And his desire to turn back stopped with the bleeding.

****· · · · · · ·** **


	5. Chapter 5

**· · · · · · ·**

Ohtremnek had been right, all throughout the city were what he called 'scatterers', special devices designed to tamper with all sorts of fields. As difficult as it could be to navigate, it would buy the renegade group some time once they'd be followed.

Nra'tex-ne was all gloom and god's fate challenged, but Karga'te enjoyed this little outing immensely. He came close enough to humans to learn about faces, scents and movement, and soon it was a game between him, Ghuran and Ohtremnek to predict their behavior. The unexpected surprises made it worthwhile, they were so erratic and dishonorable. Rhyme and reason existed, but it could go out of the window without indication, no wonder they were valued prey. The three had never hunted them before, not officially at least, but now they looked forward to it.

The pack Karga'te had fought lived in the outskirts of the city and was easily tracked down, but there were many of them, and they couldn't come too close due to their guard animals. The one human they sought wasn't to be found, and they'd been looking for six local days already. Looking forward to future hunts was a good way to drive away the time, and the risk of being killed soon.

He'd been right about a tracking party being delayed, but now they were almost through with the scarce medicine for Nra'tex-ne, they'd come. There were only so much places they could hide and Karga'te started to fear his brother was considering ritual suicide.

"Any sight of Ohtremnek yet?"

"No more than that there are elders dancing the muck lining at the horizon," said Ghuran with a snicker. All it got in response was a grunt from Nra'tex-ne.

"You should pay more respect to-" began Nra'tex-ne, only to be interrupted.

"Yeah, I know. Do not worry, I most certainly will when they're anywhere they can hear me. Till I become an elder myself, then they can go shine the blades themselves," snorted Ghuran.

Nra'tex-ne fell into his usual silence again. Defying a direct order, endangering the others, seeking allegiance with inferior lifeforms...and most of all, he was by that in the risk of losing his honor and damaging that of his house. While Karga'te didn't share his concern for honor, he understood how important it was to him.

Honor wasn't Karga'te's flavor though. He'd been degraded to a servant at early age when it was discovered his father had been a servant, his mother had taken a one night stand. It was hard to care for honor when it was decided on names who got the chance to earn it. While Nra'tex-ne had enjoyed early and good training, Karga'te had spend his time scrubbing the floor.

Nra'tex-ne had done a lot for him, giving him a chance to train along his side. A way out of the miserable existence of the servant, a way to answer all those who had mocked him. He had given them an answer, and now he was living a lie. Nra'tex-ne seemed to know this, always worried he'd join in the dance of the fallen gods. How ironic, that it had been Nra'tex-ne to drag him into breaking the laws now.

And here they were, lingering in an old ruin hoping to catch an elusive scent of a human who might be able to help. Both Karga'te and Nra'tex-ne knew how the human smelled, but it was as if the creature had vanished from the face of the planet...well, from inside that particular lair at least. All the scent trails belonging to it were old, and led no where. The most recent scent trail was at the place where Nra'tex-ne had stopped hunting the human.

Karga'te would say the human had chosen to disappear. Maybe it had done so to avoid being found by them, though he wouldn't credit such intelligence to these things. How could it guess they were after it still, after all that time?

It was closing in to evening when they finally heard Ohtremnek's signal, which imitated the local birds in a particular code. Ohtremnek was excellent at devising plans to get local animals dead without anyone noticing, so they sent him for the food.

However, he entered without carrying any meat. Ghuran growled in annoyance. "You said that building had food, you said you could get it!"

"I caught it's scent," Ohtremnek said, shoving Ghuran aside. "Down at the battle site, I took a sample of the dried blood. I programmed it's trace in my mask and I found it today."

Karga'te clattered his mandibles. "And we were thinking you were just really hungry when you went scraping that blood off the rocks! Why didn't you tell us what that was for?"

Ohtremnek threw a glance at Nra'tex-ne and said, "Why would I? It might as well have failed."

In the corner, Nra'tex-ne pushed himself upwards. "We should go then," he said with a dry voice.

"Wait. It's not so easy," Ohtremnek said. "The scent I just found was on another human."

Ghuran clicked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"It was walking between the other humans and alerted the trace signature, but it was taller than you described and probably of another gender and it had it's own scent. I made recordings of all it's features, we should have no trouble finding it, and then we can stalk it until it leads us to the humans we are looking for. Until we do, you should wait here."

Nra'tex-ne only nodded.

**· · · · · · ·**

Jarrod opened the door to the miserable little apartment complex and slipped in. The door mechanism shut with a squeak and he startled. Calming his nerves, he forced himself to just go on and pretend all was fine. He probably had not been followed.

Once this had been a splendid hotel, but that was at least a century ago. Now, it was at best an artistic array of cracked walls.

Carefully he maneuvered around the traps Carly had set to alert her for intruders before ascending the stairs. As he climbed to the fourth floor, he covered his nose. There was a slightly rotten scent filling the corridor, that better not be from one of the dogs.

The spaniel hobbled down the stairs when he was nearly at the fifth floor, followed slowly by the groggy boxer.

"Hey guys." He bent down to pet them, causing their tails to wag quicker. They looked up with large water eyes.

"Did she forget to feed you again?" he said with a grin as the larger dog tried to put its paw on his arm.

They followed him back to room 404 and went in ahead through the dog hatch, while Jarrod had to put his weight against the old door. He practically fell into the living room, to no one's response.

Despite lacking a carpet and being full of patched up furniture, it had something cozy. Sunlight fell through the glass block wall and its bright yellow curtains, placing everything in the room in a warm haze save for that one figure, hunch on the corner couch. Carly looked as gray as ever, her hair, her clothing and her mood, even the book she was reading.

"Is grandma not here?" he asked.

Carly looked up, shortly, then stared at her book again without answering. Jarrod took that as a 'no' and dropped his bag on a the leather beanbag opposite of her, then turned to the kitchen. With a whistle, he called the dogs to him.

Feeding the dogs allowed Jarrod to postpone a tedious conversation. In his bag, he had the results of the autopsy of the slaughtered scouting party, acquired after a long time of shoveling into the social rings. The results were disturbing to him : they seemed to confirm Carly's testimony, at least partially.

Her scouting party had been killed with blades by an assailant who was most likely very tall. Dogs brought to the site was frightened by some unknown scent.

When he'd seen Carly on his doorstep, bandaged up and dropped off by a scrawny teenage boy who quickly drove away, his first thought had been a rival gang haven gotten a hold on her. Then she had told him a wild story about a monster trying to kill her, telepathic people and cyberworms.

Once the dogs were gorging themselves, he returned to the living room. Carly didn't appeared to have moved at all. Jarrod slumped down in the beanbag and opened his bag, only to find his phone missing. Looking up, he noticed Carly had something lying on the pages of her book. She looked up, despise evident in her eyes. He could guess why, she did not like being called insane, and now she had evidence that she wasn't.

"You know, looking like that isn't going to convince our gang you're innocent."

"I'll get a genetic make over once they invent those, happy?"

Carly had very little about her that could be called attractive, with narrow eyes in a gaunt face, and that expression only made it worse. Like him, she had graying hair, but at least he'd fallen out better in the looks department. It wasn't that uncommon for people in this city to develop some sort of defect, what with all the genetic hijinks that happened in the laboratories where half the population came from. Infertility had forced this and children were created simply to fill a demand. Jarrod at least had scored better in the looks department.

Carly tossed the phone aside and continued with her book. Great, he was getting the silent treatment.

"You forgot to feed the dogs, they-" he tried.

"Idiot. If Rox vomits here, you get to clean it up."

"What?"

"I gave them their food on the empty floor above, because he is sick again. Capish? They tricked you."

He almost argued that she should have said so when he went to the kitchen, but recalled that last visit she had mentioned Rox's habit of eating her own vomit. Hmm, did he really want to argue about vomit with a grouchy Carly?

Actually, he did want to argue, but not about that.

After an uncomfortable silence, he said, "There's more ... more information in my phone, about the latest routes in Cable Lock."

Carly rolled her eyes. "Not interested."

"Shit, Carly! Do you have any idea how hard it was to get a non-traceable phone out of there? You could at least say something like 'I'll read it later'!" Jarrod bit his tongue before continuing, startled by the noise he'd been making. So far for avoiding a conflict.

The woman straightened up in her seat for the first time. Through gritted teeth, she said "Jarrod, I _do not care_. If I'm lucky, I'll spend me the rest of my life in this fucking building. No gang is going to take a marked traitor in and this city is a prison. I'm putting a concentrated effort in keeping my sanity which you are disturbing, thank you very much. Not that you deem that very high at the moment."

Jarrod reminded himself not to take the bait. Once Carly was arguing, there'd be no end to it. But something about how she spoke just was so ...

"Look, be reasonable, you saw ghosts who became monsters and-"

"Shut the fuck up! I want no more of that bullshit, Jarrod, I'm losing my patience! You already gave me this rant the last time you visited, and the time before, and before that! I can't take it today!"

Jarrod threw his hands in the air. "Why do I even bother coming here? Can't even say two sentences —"

"One more word, Jarrod."

He'd have given her one more word if a ringing sound hadn't come from the air shaft behind Carly's couch. She tensed up at once, so that probably meant one of her alarms had gone off. She slipped off the couch and whistled softly. The spaniel appeared at once and Carly gestured at the door, sending him out. Then her hand went to her pocket, where it clutched something.

Jarrod cautiously stood up, but after a while the dog returned quietly. Carly relaxed and slumped back on her couch, picking up her book. Jarrod grabbed his phone and went to the kitchen for a drink, swallowed a can in two gulps, then went to hold the door open.

A very old woman came in, pushing a small roller bag.

"Mirth, how are you?"

The woman looked up and rolled her eyes, not unlike Carly "Wonderful, just wonderful. That stupid small elevator is going down the same path as the big one, I just had to haul all this stuff up by hand!"

Jarrod looked at her in disbelief, and she laughed. "Nah, the neighbor down below helped me. Not. And you can bring it all the way to the kitchen." She pushed the roller bag towards him.

"Sure," he said twith a kind laugh.

"Carly, go see whether you can pull Henrik off the roof, will ya?" Mirth called.

**· · · · · · ·**

She was up the top two stairs with a few jumps, then went through the staff stairway. Once this had been a hotel, the top floor not accessible for guests.

The old man's voice carried down along with the falling of seeds. Every day he came up to feed the birds here, even though the "roof" no longer was the roof. Later additional buildings had overshadowed this small plaza all around and a roof of glass was made far above the original roof to keep sand from clustering up in the hole. It had literary been absorbed by the new buildings, though all was old by now.

As usual, Henrik was happily chattering and throwing seeds in the direction of dove bones. The rats that ate the seeds were already skittering near the walls.

"Henrik, Mirth's back, she wants you to come down for dinner," said Carly.

The old man turned and smiled at her. "Just a little longer, I like to be up here with my friends, especially now that I've got new guests. Must always be hospitable to guests, Carly."

Carly rolled her eyes and sighed. "What, you finally realized those black things are rats?"

Then she noticed it. The rats feared him not, sometimes they'd even climb him to get to the seeds, but now they were close to the walls.

The next thing she noticed was the broken glass in one of the corners. He face whipped upward. There, several windows were broken entirely and the metal frame was bent.

"Who are your guests, grandpa?" Her hand moved to her pocket and she grasped the small gun inside it. Anxiously she looked over the terrace, but found no suspicious shimmers in the dull yellow light.

Henrik kept a wide grin on his face and threw a few more seeds.

"Who are they?"

"Why are you so nervous? Oh, you are afraid that those nasty people from Cable Lock will find you! Don't worry, they don't belong to that nasty group."

"Grandpa, Mirth wants you to help her with dinner. Jarrod is down there, he might screw it up," she tried.

A look of concern crossed Henrik's face. "Oh my, and I was just hoping to introduce you to my new friends. I can't see them right now, though..."

At that moment, a bird's voice sounded. But there was no bird. Carly lurched forward and took Henrik by the arm. "Yes, come on, you really don't want another gum-paprika-pie, right? Let's go, now!" She almost pulled the old man off his feet and started dragging him towards the door, but he resisted.

"Heyhey, not so rude, greyhead!"

Biting back her will to snap at him, Carly let go of his arm. "Just come along, okay? Okay?"

"Alright, no need to get rude," he said, arching his eyebrows. "Gotta get more seeds for the birds anyway."

Still clutching her weapon, Carly let the old man descend first. She set her ears sharp, waiting for anything that could betray their presence.

A bird sounded again. It was exactly the same tune as before.

Once they reached the top guest stairs, she thought she heard creaking coming from the staff room they had just left. Suspiciously, she stared at the now closed door, but the sound didn't repeat itself.

They went down the stairs slowly. Before her, Henrik happily told her about a non-existent nest of dove-chicks he had spotted, and how he would need more seeds. Behind her, there was now the sound of footsteps. Carly could count her heartbeats, but forced herself to walk calmly ... do nothing to provoke whatever game they were up to.

She didn't look behind her as she followed Henrik back into the apartment. When she door fell in its lock, she turned around and waited for further sounds. These things would likely opt for melee combat, probably were thrill seekers or something. Their only known weakness was cold. Awesome, since it was smothering warm in here.

Her breath held for a moment when there was the distinct sound of something coming down the stairs. She scooted into the living room and pulled her gun out, taking off the safety lock.

Oblivious, Henrik disappeared into the kitchen, but Jarrod understood at once. He slowly stood up and reached for his own weapon.

"They followed me? But how..? Your alarms didn't go off."

"Nobody tripped them."

Her eyes fixed on the door, but the next sound came from behind her. Jarrod screamed as something lifted him and threw him against the wall. He landed on the couch in an awkward heap while a viperlike rattle sounded. The ghostly outline then turned its attention to Carly, grabbing her hand and twisting it up just as she pushed the trigger.

Jarrod untangled himself and pulled his gun, but one of the other monsters shot just as quickly. Another infernal net shifted into view, pinning Jarrod to the couch and twisting his arm away. His gunfire hit the glass wall, shattering one of the thick glass blocks.

The monster still held her arm up and the third approach to pry her weapon out of it.

"We're gonna die, just like the others, we're gonna die..." she heard Jarrod mutter aside of her.

"Sure, _now_ you believe me," she whispered irritably, but then her attention was drawn to the kitchen again. Henrik appeared from it, dragging the two barking dogs and lecturing them on not being so rude to guests. He made some weak attempts to get them to another room, and oddly enough, the creatures entirely ignored him. When Mirth fearfully looked into the room, they had no attention for her either.

In fact, none of the three outlines had any of those wrist blades drawn, as far as she could tell.

The door was forced open under a splintering crash at that moment. Carly instinctively wanted to get away, but her hand still was in an iron grip.

The fourth monster decloaked and snarled something with that hideous face, at which Carly was let go. The other three decloaked on cue.

All had the same silvery armor and amphibian skin, though their coloration varied wildly. There were two that matched the yellow with brown stripes of the one she'd met earlier, the other two were a dark brown with stripes and light to dark grey with mottles. The one that had just entered was the only one without mask, and there was a massive cut on its upper leg.

She cast a quick glance at Jarrod, he seemed okay. The general lack of violence, relatively speaking, gave her some confidence.

"Alright, what the hell is going on here?"

Off course, no answer came. The injured one snarled and barked some unknown words at the other, who backed away. The gray one typed something on its gauntlet, then expectantly looked at Carly.

Nothing happened, and there was more rattling.

"Okay ... if you guys aren't going to be killing us, how about removing that net?" Carly said, waving broadly at her entrapped cousin.

The injured one looked briefly at Jarrod, then addressed the brown one. He went over, snatched the gun from Jarrod's hand and withdrew the net into a holder on his back. Jarrod struggled loose before it well good and well withdrawn, kicking himself off the couch.

Again she got expectant looks, and what was probably an impatient growl from the striped one closest to her.

She was about to ask something when the injured one almost sank through his legs. Its color match barely caught him below the arm and helped him towards the beanbag.

If Carly hadn't deemed herself in a potentially lethal scenario, she would have laughed at seeing the massive monster gracelessly sink into the beanbag. It shifted around a bit, leaned back and again looked at Carly. This time it tapped its gauntlet and traces shapes in the air with its clawed fingers.

Oh crap, it expected her to be able to communicate.

"Who wants lunch?" Henrik announced so loudly she startled.

Without a care in the world, he marched right past the monsters with a tray in his hands, which he proudly set down on the table between couch and beanbag.

"I made sandwiches!"

**· · · · · · ·**

Nra'tex-ne got his first clear communication in the form of food. After a disappointing start, it was looking better. The human on the roof had already tried offering him those seeds, perhaps that had been some sort of ritual prelude to food sharing. He'd seen weirder on other worlds. His stomach rumbled and he almost chowed down on it, but forced himself to ignore it for now. The human he'd encountered before looked weary still, so he had to establish friendly report still.

The system that had translated earlier was clearly not active here.

"Ohtremnek, is that machine on?" He pointed at the corner to the left of the cold block wall. "The humans had a computer with them, perhaps it needs to be on first."

"It's off, but I can fix that," Ohtremnek said. He elbowed Ghuran who had only attention to the food, earning himself a growl, but Ghuran didn't move for the food.

The old human made some odd noises and the one aside of the couch responded in a fearful tone. He wished he had learned human language when it had been offered to him, a few years ago. He could barely understand the emotive tone.

Ohtremnek managed to turn on the human computer and stepped back. Still, nothing happened.

"When is something going to happen? I thought you said Tex knew how to talk to them."

"For the dozenth time, Ghuran, it's the humans that knew," Karga'te snarled.

"Perhaps they've got customs that need to be honored, isn't this elder here offering us food? I think so, at least..." Ohtremnek suggested.

"Let's test that!" Ghuran snatched one of the layered food offerings of the plate, propping it into his mouth all the way. As response, the old human showed its teeth.

"I think you just violated a custom," said Nra'tex-ne dryly. "Ghuran, step back and-"

The old human held out the plate in front of Karga'te and showed his teeth again.

"Showing teeth may not mean the same with them as it does with us," said Ohtremnek. Karga'te didn't quite care and took one of the weird food compositions off the plate, tasting it first.

"Meager," he said, but ate it anyway. The human then proceeded to offer the food to the other two as well, all the while showing a set of decaying teeth in its mouth. After Nra'tex-ne had taken one — it had a vague scent of meat but was mostly plant based — the human set down the plate on a tiny table before Nra'tex-ne's seat.

Yep, definitely some sort of rite. The human he had hunted now sat down on the couch, opposite of him. She still had that scent of fear, but it wasn't as strong as during their first meeting.

Was he supposed to do something now?

She wasn't taking any food. Maybe if he'd encourage her to eat, she'd understand he was here to talk on equal footing. When he leaned forward, she flinched and jumped up. A startled Ghuran promptly released his wrist blades, and the human sat down at once.

Nra'tex-ne snarled at him, and Ghuran withdrew the blades with a dumb look on his face. That one had a worse temper than Karga'te.

Leaning entirely forward, which made a shot of pain run through his leg, he grabbed one of the food slices and held it out to the human.

**· · · · · · ·**

"You ... gotta be kidding me."

Carly looked at the sandwich and then back at the monster's face. Its eyes didn't seem all too threatening right now, let alone the actions, but what did she know? This thing had barged into her world and attempted to kill her for no good reason. Now, they were having a cozy meeting in her not-grandparents house and _he offered her a sandwich_.

Repeating the truth a few times in her head didn't make it less ridiculous. She was having a sandwich along with the monster who tried to kill her previously. Yes, all had gone crazy.

Her eyes fell on the computer in the corner, and now she understood: they thought she could do the same as those geeks with Jormungandr. She probably should get in contact with them again. The reason why these things wanted peaceful contact was anyone's guess, but they weren't going to kill her here and today. She could figure something out to make that situation last.

She took a breath through her clenched teeth and decided that since the world was clearly crazier than before, she better become weird as well.

Reaching out, she took the sandwich offered to her.

_Hi, life, how you doing?_

_Fine, said life, you enjoying that sandwich you got from your would-be-murderer who also is a ghostly alien?_

_Oh, it's swell._

_**· · · · · · ·** _


	6. Weird Kind

**· · · · · · ·**

Watching humans eat was bizarre. Where yautja tore their food to pieces with mandibles and fangs, humans muled maulers to turn it to mush. It was pointless to ponder, but in lieu of anything else happening, it kept him entertained. Karga'te did the same by constantly shifting his feet and Ghuran occasionally whined, which made the male human flinch and the one before him uneasy.

The computer in the corner was on, but nothing happened. He had been pretty sure they were in the company of comprehensive humans, because the one on the roof had responded to their questions by inviting them in. Unfortunately, that hadn't meant battle was avoidable.

"What now?" Ghuran snarled.

"We will stay until we can make ourselves clear."

Ohtremnek clicked his mandibles in agreement. "That will take some time. Ghuran, just keep quiet."

"So Tex can't talk to them?"

"No," Karga'te snarled. "Now shut up."

Ghuran responded by stuffing his face with the remaining food on the tray.

The old human made odd noises in that side room, accompanied by new foodlike scents.

It tasted strange, but he preferred offered food over theft. Above that, with this much hunger he'd have eaten it if it tasted like shit. This went for his companions too, so when the human reappeared with the next course, Nra'tex-ne had to make sure it was divided fairly. Ghuran was quick to forget some of it was meant for the two humans on the sofa.

"Ghuran, there are seven, not four, you can't-" Karga'te was quicker that his words and took away the spare three before Ghuran got to them, placing them on the table, rattling at Ghuran's disappointed growl.

The human they'd released from the net remained stock still, the other one shifted a bit back on its seat. That one still smelled of blood and he spotted pieces of cloth around its arms, legs and neck. Less technology oriented species used those contraptions for dealing with injury, which did not get his hopes up for their being able to offer help for their ship.

The old human that had made the food at down between the two and chattered while eating his portion. Nra'tex-ne figured that this one must be so old and wise to recognize the situation as non-lethal, while the younglings were nervous.

At that point, a second old human entered. They'd observed this one earlier, but had not been sure it belonged to the same family. Nra'tex-ne turned to the new arrival, intending to greet but unsure how.

**· · · · · · ·**

"What took you so long, deary?" Henrik asked.

Mirth rubber her hands at her skirt and said :"Laundry. So ... what do our guests want?"

"They won't harm us, I think..." Carly said with a hoarse voice. Startled at the sound, she scraped her throat, trying to pushed away the weakness. The injured one looked at her, it made her nervous. "They want contact ... we need to find a way to reach those geeks I told you about before these guys run out of patience."

Henrik peered around and happily shouted, "Slumber party?! We need chips!"

"We need to kill those things ..." Jarrod whispered.

"Be happy they don't understand what you are saying. We are overpowered, nitwit," she sneered.

The injured alien tilted its head, almost like a curious cat —disturbing parallel that did not help her resolve to not think about it hunting her.

Carefully she stood up, ignoring the wrist blades that one of them still had extended. "Gramps, I'm gonna do some stuff on the computer, kay?"

The old man blinked, then smiled. "Ah, sure."

Mirth cast Carly a confused look, to which she shook her head. She didn't know much about the search methods available either, but one way or another, she had to find those people. Who knew what would happen once these monsters stopped being patient.

Mirth sat down behind the computer and began typing. Carly gulped, then walked past the beanbag, making a big curve around the alien near it. The wind hit her face, she cast a quick look and saw the window had been shattered more than half way. Pieces of glass cracked under her slippers. The curtain drifted on the wind, clouds of sand whirled in even at this level of the building. Behind her, one of the creatures shifted on it's feet to keep an eye on her with that impassive mask. She couldn't see the face of the unmasked one anymore, oddly enough felt less safe. Without those almost human eyes, she couldn't imagine them as anything less than monsters.

"Watcha want me to do now? Got any clues?" Mirth asked, snapping Carly from her adrenaline induced hypervigilance. Her demeanor was calm, but she could see her clutching the table.

"None that might help with a search engine," she said.

Mirth turned in her seat and loudly said, "Henrik, darling, maybe our guests would like more food. Henrik was all too happy to take that hint and darted to his beloved kitchen. The dark brown one almost got up to follow, but was restrained by a guttural command of the injured one. He sat back down.

When Carly looked back at the computer, Mirth had accessed a rather obscene site. , ... "Yikes! The hell, grandma!"

"Our best shot. They've got a very detailed partner search engine. Describe me some of their looks, see whether you recognize any of the results."

"Most of those people were children," she said, unsure what disturbed her more : that her little old grandmother used this site or that the implication of how far some people went. She'd seen her share of lewd things in the gang, but the association with grannies and kids existed on a whole other level.

"Don't worry, I don't use it."

_I must be insane to be relieved about that while there are ghost aliens in the room_.

"Henrik does. Keeps him occupied. The results can be quite hilarious."

_Didn't wanna know._

Carly described the people she remembered from the car, starting with the older ones. Shifting through a list of photos of Mahad and Melanie provided no recognition, but then the blond, wimpy guy Frank ... bingo. He tried to look tough on his photo, but was still recognizable.

"That's him. Can you send him a message?"

"Just say the words."

"I think we better code this ... _The snakes of the dead worlds who answers to no one, here are visitors from another world, a living and hunting one. Left one to bleed, came to that one to speak_." Carly figured that the A.I that nowadays kept monitor on all web activity would probably not be smart enough to decipher this ... it probably came across weirder messages being sent from this site.

Clattering and alien language behind her broke what little diversion she'd gained.

**· · · · · · ·**

As soon as Nra'tex-ne had heard the jokes Ghuran and Karga'te made about the digital pictures, the "site" that the human was looking at, he had wanted to leave. Nothing that displayed the mating ritual of others out and open and treated it like everyday entertainment was worthy to be talked to. Hadn't it been for his wounded leg, he would have gotten up and left, but Karga'te kept him down on the seat, saying not to make a deal of it.

He was somewhat glad he did not have a mask on at that moment, nothing with which he could see whatever was on that screen. The right to mate was the highest honor possible, these creatures treated it in a way so dishonorable that he could not account for himself.

"Karga'te, let me get up, we are leaving!" he snarled.

"And do what? Go back to the ship, succumb to dishonor and die? Besides, your former prey doesn't like it either, I'm pretty sure she swore."

"How would you know?"

"Excessive experience with being sworn at," Karga'te said. "Comes with slave life. Now, I bet you they have a good reason to be looking at that now."

Nra'tex-ne glared at Karga'te with all his might. "We will make no deals with this species any more than we would be making deals with badbloods!"

"The blood loss must be getting to your head, cause you're about to ditch this whole thing over some flat pictures," Karga'te growled.

"They're using a search function," Ohtremnek stated.

Nra'tex-ne turned. "What?"

"They're looking at UV spectra images of faces. Just a moment ago, they pinpointed one, typed something in their language and closed the digital area."

"Why would a search function display such imagery?"

"I'm sure they'll explain once we can talk. They do seem quite intelligent. Except for the food maker. I think he's insane." Ohtremnek rubbed his mandibles, nodding at the man slightly.

Nra'tex-ne crossed his arms. "Now we're insulting elders for not panicking like younglings? You three are-"

"Oh, the elder at the computer's here's a cool nut. The other one's insane though," Karga'te said.

"Nonsense," Nra'tex-ne said, turned to look at Karga'te, who looked like he just dropped his hands after signaling to Ghuran.

Nra'tex-ne tried to stand again, but Karga'te and Ghuran both leaned down on his shoulders. He had to stay.

"Brother, you're badly wounded and you're defending the sanity of one human while dismissing the supposed dignity of the others. Get a grip. They don't spread some sort of spore that will taint your honor. If you wanna talk honor, then how about you keep yours by not jumping to conclusions?"

Nra'tex-ne hated those rare instances when Karga'te displayed more common sense than him. The universe was very wrong when that happened.

"They are watching-"

"No, they were locating another human. Now sit here till they do something, whatever, cause I'm not gonna help you walk to that door and it's not very honorable to crawl down that stairs, is it?"

He also hated how Karga'te sometimes managed to make things easier for him by being total jerk.

**· · · · · · ·**

Carly and Mirth stood stock still and watched the scene. "You think we did something, girl?"

"Eh ..."

Smoke came from the kitchen, giving her a more immediate worry. She darted for the kitchen. "Grandpa, what the hell are you doing? Oh you didn't-"

The redbrown hunter got up and with speed absurd for such a big creature got into the kitchen before Carly. Panicking, Carly forgot her fear and ran after it.

**· · · · · · ·**

"You! OUT! Just get OUT!" The three yautja and the old woman stared in shock at the kitchen. "NO, grandpa, don't show him the freezer!"

Ohtremnek calmly stepped to the kitchen, reached in, found some dreadlocks to grab and tried pulling out Ghuran. The pullée did not want to, then Ohtremnek was distracted by the fire. That wasn't quite supposed to be there, but he left it to the human. They seemed to have a better idea what to do.

Karga'te had stood up and blocked the small entrance by looking in, at which the old human showed his teeth again. The younger one had gotten a metal tube that it used to spray white foam on the fire.

At that point, Ghuran unhinged the door to a cold box and dug out all sorts of frozen food. One of the pieces hit the old human in the head, whose wide open mouth turns its corners down while producing pained noise.

For a moment, the foamy human didn't so much smell fearful as it smelled angry. The metal tube sailed past Ohtremnek, hitting Ghuran right on the back of the head. Hmm, good aiming.

Furious, Ghuran whirled around, but whatever imposing thing he tried to do was hindered by the potted plant dangling from the ceiling, which broke when he slammed his face into it.

"GET OUT!" the angry human hollered.

"I think it's a female," said Karga'te. "A very angry female that doesn't like how we've been dishonoring her house or something like that. Not that we'd know what we're doing wrong, or why they have plants on the ceiling or frozen food. Right, brother?"

"Fine," was all the brother said.

"Ghuran, you hurt her elder. Don't make a scene," Ohtremnek said. Karga'te grabbed Ghuran and pushed him out the door, while Ohtremnek picked up the frozen food and threw it back in the cold box.

**· · · · · · ·**

Aliens in her living room and Carly had no idea when they'd decide to kill her or what to do or how to keep her family safe or ...

Henrik wouldn't let her fuss over the head injury, saying he was fine and accidents happen and she should just go back to their guests now. He took the frying pan with the burned food and went out himself, Carly following him closely.

"Carly?" She startled at Mirth's voice. The woman had come to stand near the kitchen door.

"This is so insane," Carly whispered.

Mirth looked almost too understanding. "I know ... the big one of the beanbag ... I think he's trying to tell us something. Can you handle it, or do you need some time to calm down?"

"No... I can handle it," she said.

Forcing her breath down, she edged past the monsters. Henrik had put the pan on the table and somehow seen it fit to launch into the story of how he met Mirth. The injured alien gave only a puzzled look at the flood of words, while Jarrod seemed to share her designation of all this being insane.

Carly sat down at her old spot, and faced the alien again. _Wow, hideous ... concentrate on other things, please_.

Suddenly, he spoke.

Mirth nodded at her while taking Henrik by the hand. She led him away to another room.

The wounded alien put his hand on his forehead and said something like "rateksen". He repeated the sound a few times. Oh, he was doing the ape style introduction. Yep, just like those corny old movies.

Well, that she could do. She tapped her own head and said, "Carly," then waved at him. "Rateksenay. I guess this cheesy introduction means you're not gonna get out of my life any time soon, does it?" He clattered his mandibles and tilted his head.

"Carly, don't get angry again," said Jarrod nervously.

"He can't understand me."

"Carli," said the creature, nodding slightly.

"Yep." She pointed with her thumb at her nephew. "Jarrod."

"Jarrot."

"He's my nephew, we don't get along wonderful, but we generally agree about basic things, like wanting to shoot you through the head. But we're not gonna cause your friends are bigger."

Hmm, two weeks of pent up frustration. Carly hadn't thrown enough fire extinguishers yet to let it go, and a mounting level of confidence.

"I'll just call you Tex," she said after a silence. "It's gonna be a long day and I'm not in the mood for pronouncing that annoying name of yours each time we garble at each other."

From there on, they established a few more basic words. The monsters were called yautja as a species. They had in fact come with a ship.

They planned to stay, apparently. She really hoped that didn't mean _here_ , in this house.

Mirth eventually took over the task of cooking and conjured up a lot of food and started to have fun along the way, thereby robbing Carly of her one sane support.

Two things needed to be explained first. Time, and hiding.

Time she explained by referring to the shadow of the sun : it might take time before there is a reply from the person at the other end of the computer. He seemed to get it.

The other was hiding. It was not a good idea to have a bunch of aliens in your living room when you are already were on the red list. The authorities would be right on it if the wrong person in an opposite building looking this way, curious at the broken window.

This they understood exceedingly well, as the moment she made them aware of how shifts were ending and people were returning to several of the buildings nearby, they became anxious. A few shifted on those cloaking things.

In response to that Carly led them up the stairs, across the pigeon chamber and into an attic behind a hidden door. She had to wait a few times on the way there, as the wounded one needed support to get up.

The supposed attic was rather small and used to be the home of the janitor, but was now her personal room. With a bit of aid, it's entrance was not visible for the normal eye. The room had no windows and from the outside no one could guess there even was a room. A few torn couches and leather chairs stood around, a primitive kettle and cooking device and a lot of books. No electronics, Carly took no risks at all, but she wanted to keep herself busy so books were a good alternative. Candles could be cozy.

The wounded one sat down on one of the couches, the one with similar colors still hovering around him. He was protective. Maybe they had families, just like humans did.

That was all fine and well, but he had her couch that doubled as bed, meaning she wouldn't have a spot to sleep well. Not that she wanted to sleep in the same room as them. Blankets and pigeon room it was, hopefully not for too long. That Frank better get in soon soon.

Just as she stepped out of the room, Jarrod came up the stairs. He looked more collected than before, but still had that frantic spell in his eyes.

"We need to warn the others ... can't trust these things you know ... look at their weapons, those could be useful," he said.

Carly sighed. She didn't disagree, and the idea of getting some better fire power appealed, but now wasn't a good time. Aliens and all that, still attached to those weapons. "We will see what becomes. Right now, I'm not aiming a gun at any of them."

"Oh, but I know you will once you get a safe chance," he whispered. "Better sooner than later, right? Maybe if we have help?"

"That depends on what is more beneficial for me," she said. "See them as another gang. They need help and right now we are forced to do that. If they would turn against us or become an obstacle, we would be countering them, if not, then _we have better things to do_ , Jarrod. Like surviving."

"These monsters killed five of us ... how can you stand here and not care?" She rolled her eyes. "I care for only a few people, and those scouts were not among them. They are not just monsters, they're smart. If we try to sell them out to our gang, all they're gonna see is a trap. They don't know about nor care about me having to prove my claims to get back in."

"Yeah, but ... it would be pretty awesome, right? If we could deliver these guys to them, with all those weapons ... what that could mean for our position."

Carly put her hand on Jarrod's shoulder. "Oh yes, you're right about that." She then jerked him closer and whispered in his ears. "But you're gonna _listen to me_ and you're _not_ going to do anything rash to endanger our lives or those of Henrik and Mirth. They let us walk free because they know they can catch us anytime."

He shook her off and looked down at her. "Don't _you_ worry about that."

**· · · · · · ·**

Nra'tex-ne had watched the dispute with mild interest. Karga'te fiddled with the stolen medicine, trying to make a schedule for its use, but he too had looked up when the two got physical with each other. The larger one left, Carli held back for a bit. Then she too left.

"So...what now?" asked Ohtremnek while snatching the medicines from Karga'te and putting them back in place.

"We set a watch. Tonight well will rest here, tomorrow we will continue trying to communicate. These humans clearly don't have the trick to tap into our helmets, so we need to make them clear that we want to meet the ones that could," said Nra'tex-ne.

"I'll take first watch on the top of the building. If anything leaves, I'll bring it back," said Ghuran. Nra'tex-ne approved. Ghuran was quick to leave the narrow room and get to his job, _or_ to first conquer more food downstairs.

Nra'tex-ne stretched out on the couch. It was small, but he needed sleep. Little medicine was left and the wound was a constant tearing gap now, perhaps already infected. It had to heal if he ever wanted to be useful again, but there was little hope for that.

The scent of the human was exceedingly strong in this room he noticed, and then it clicked. She slept here, most likely, and had left with a large amount of what might just be bed material. "Oh just perfect, now I'm intruding on a female's private space too." The thought of getting up and clarifying her he could sleep elsewhere announced itself, but not quick enough to stop the sleep.

It brought him no spiritual rest however. Broken a direct order, broken a universal code, endangered his clan and about to make an allegiance with an honorless species. He might end up never hunting again, even if he managed not to die in an honorless way.

**· · · · · · ·**

In cyberspace Jormungand traveled, always alert for new traps for him, only to break them and use them against it's creators. Tonight, he found a curious message in a familiar place. It mentioned him personally, and no traps at all.

There was no IP log for that message, but he needed none. He knew of the dead dogs, he knew of the NHO scan that had been detected some days ago. It took him milliseconds to decide the origin and cause and an equal amount of time to set up a new game route, now that he had these beautiful pieces to play with. He just needed a bit more detail.

Carly Marken's address was easy. All he did was send an email with a location in the city, then he alterted his little human allies that the game would be getting a sequel.

**· · · · · · ·**


	7. Different Eyes

**· · · · · · ·**

The cold of the desert bit at their skin, but it wasn't unusually cold. Coats kept out the worst at these temperatures. Oihana hopped from one foot onto another less due to freezing toes than to excitement.

Not entirely her excitement, actually. That emotion was strengthened by Mahad, who stood aside of her still caught in disbelief at the email he'd received. It was sometimes hard to tell what her own emotions were, but right now there was doubt. Across the past days she'd been 'catching more data from the wind', as she liked to call it, and she didn't like what she learned.

Jormungandr had only told them that the aliens were indeed the hunters, she'd realized they hunted _anything_ that was a challenge. Killing that woman hadn't been an exception to any law due to the threat of discovery. These four weren't here to kill, at least, and perhaps they could ensure nobody in the city would be killed. For now, she'd just worry about how she'd tell the others what 'prey' meant to the hunters.

"I don't see or hear any car," Mahad said, increasingly disappointed as he stared through night goggles. "Do you catch anything?"

"I think they're driving slow because one of them is injured," she said hesitantly. "But should be here very soon. One of them has arrived already."

"Really?"

She pointed to the left, up a hill. Mahad immediately turned his night goggles there, but off course didn't see a thing.

"He's cloaked still, isn't he?"

She smiled a little, that meant he was almost childishly impatient. Her smile dropped a moment later, when the lightless car crossed the top of the hill and the people inside found reason to panic.

She grabbed Mahad's sleeve and jerked at it. "Move, now!"

He followed where she pulled him, closer to a few large boulders at the side of the road. She had no idea where the car would crash, but it would crash. Barely had she and Mahad climbed atop, or the car collided with the rocks a few meters to the left. Iron screeched as it mashed with stone, glass shattered and someone inside used very foul language.

Mahad took out a flashlight and aimed it. "Wow, what an old model. Who uses wheels in the desert?"

The left car door was kicked open and out stepped a gray haired young man in long leather coat, still swearing. Mahad focused his flashlight on him and missed entirely what was in the backseat. The right door flew open and out fell the woman who'd been targeted earlier, Carly.

"I thought you could drive that wreck!" she screamed as she crawled up on her feet. Like the man, she wore a long coat, but below was a t-shirt, shorts and fuzzy bunny slippers. How she wasn't freezing was a riddle, as was how she took herself serious in that get-up.

The young man ignored her and stared into the flashlight. "Who is there?!"

At that moment, the left hind door was kicked open with so much force the door flew off its hinges.

"No, don't come out yet! We don't know whether those are the right people!"

He didn't understand it in the least and was just eager to get out of that cramped little space as quickly as possible. He sank through his legs before he was out entirely and Oihana became stingingly aware of just how bad his condition was. Her body almost copied the pain as her own, and that was enough to alert her mother way back in the house. Crap.

"Shit, Carly! Whoever is there will have seen that thing! You-"

"Stop it with that you-you all the time!"

"We are...we're here to...for him, the hunter aliens. We were there. Hi, remember us?" Mahad said.

The face of the young man twisted oddly, unsure what to begin with that answer. He wasn't expecting children at all.

"You people...it's about time!" Carly snapped without ever taking her eyes off the alien. She didn't trust him to not change his mind.

The other three closed in around them with terrifying quietness. She nudged Mahad to alert him of their presence, so he wouldn't startle.

The injured one pulled himself up at the car and now stared up at Mahad curiously, a sentiment Mahad echoed, with some complimentary fascination.

Now to just get them to the house without being noticed.

Oihana and her mother had a lone house on the farthest outskirts of the city, up the desert hills. It had once been a complex to house people of the water plants, but now it was abandoned and they had the entire place for themselves. As psychics, the empty surroundings were a blessing. Jormungandr had gotten it for them shortly after she'd joined the geek squad.

The empty space also meant that her mother didn't have to circumvent a load of fields from machines and people to get a clear focus on what was happened. There was no use in keeping secrets, so Oihana let her know exactly was was happening. Jormungandr had contacted them to say that four hunters had approached Carly to strike a truce and it wanted them on a safer location, intent on at least figuring out how to communicate with them. The Eir home was the only suitable place, since everyone else lived in the crowded city and had parents who wouldn't understand.

Her mother wasn't happy. She also wasn't managing to be _awake_ , instead caught in a nightmare and not realizing that her dream about the monster coming to visit were real. In fact, she was dreaming about the hunters coming to eat humans. For Oihana, mistaking a reality for a dream was nigh impossible, since her empathic sense would tell her what was real, but her mother was mostly just telepathic. Very telepathic, so she got more detailed information than Oihana, but lacked a certain grounding. **  
**

It felt horrible to let her mother continue having a nightmare, but for now it was better if they got all set without her knowledge. Oihana went ahead to hold open the door for the injured alien, then hurried to the living room to push aside a table before the couch.

The four aliens followed her in, one supporting the injured, then came the two adults, and Mahad closed the door. Speaking aloud, he suggested Jormungandr turn up the heater, which the AI complied with. Then he eagerly went to the living room and tried to inconspicuously look the aliens over. He was curious about everything at once, their strange mix of tribal armor with high technology, the indications of different races, and so on. He also noted they were all likely starving, and pegged the injured one as the oldest. She quietly sent him a feeling of affirmative; the other three had far more juvenile minds. He chuckled at that, since those three couldn't set still at all.

Oihana decided it was best if she left now, before Mahad's giddiness infected her to the point of laughter. She went to the kitchen, where she found Carly and the man — ah, he was named Jarrod, and he was probably her family — arguing with each other. He tried to open the cabinet he was leaning against, but he didn't move and snapped, "You know, you could just ask me to move."

He wasn't really annoyed with her, but that still didn't sit well with her. She hadn't wanted to interrupt, that was all.

"Oh shut up Jarrod, now you fancy yourself the king of this kitchen too?" Carly whispered harshly.

"I've had it now-"

"Oh really? What did you have? I couldn't figure it out the last twenty times, you know."

"Why don't you just shut up before something keelhauls us?" Jarrod straightened up as he said that, and Oihana could open the cabinet. Out she pulled a jar full of herbs. Clutching it close to her, she vanished into the hall.

She barely took five steps or the two followed.

"Hey, kid. Sorry about that. It's just that this all is really one big mess and —"

"Yeah, sorry about that," Carly said dryly.

"It's okay," Oihana said.

"So you do talk?" Jarrod said.

"Sometimes." She continued walking back to the living room, but at a slower pace, giving them time to strike up that conversation they wanted.

"Why aren't you afraid of them?" Carly asked.

Oh, that was a tough one. She was afraid of the hunters as a whole, for what they could do to the city. But these four weren't so bad. The older one was very aware and had firmly resolved not to harm any humans now, even if he'd done so in the past, and the other three were just teenagers curious about their first meeting with humans. They hadn't yet developed a taste for human kills.

"I can tell these ones won't harm us."

Carly gave her an odd look. "They've got a lot of ...oh, you know, murderous habits. You're sure those won't surface again?"

Oihana shook her head. "Jor says they aren't on a hunt, and they do not randomly kill."

Carly frowned. "Oh yeah? What about those two then?"

"Who?" Oihana stopped walking in the door opening, looking into the living room. Mahad was trying to make them understand he needed a helmet to hook up to his computer.

Carly stepped up aside of Oihana. "The ones that tried to kill me. Karga'te and Nra'tex-ne. I remember what you guys told me earlier, but that wasn't convincing me it wouldn't happen again."

"And the other names?"

"First my question."

"Okay. Karga'te came to the city just looking for food, he didn't realize dogs could detect him even when cloaked. He was already retreating when you and your gang caught up to him. Nra'tex-ne came in to retrieve him and had to clean up witnesses."

" _That_ was retreating?"

"I think they teach everyone that they aren't allowed to leave traces of themselves. Normally they don't mind people seeing them, but now they're crashed in the desert ..."

Carly and Jarrod stifled a laugh. "Highly advanced aliens loaded with weapons all over, get caught by mankind's oldest alarm system. And did you just say they crashed in the desert?" Carly said.

"Nice little database you are," Jarrod added. He was actually feeling far less amused than Carly right now, but tried hiding it. Part of him considered snitching to his gang in hopes of restoring both Carly's status and getting rid of the monsters, but he feared that would end messily for him.

Mahad had gotten the light gray one — Otremnek? — to take off his mask and was now trying to somehow hook his laptop to it. The mask's owner had dumped the contents of a bag on the table and together they sorting through it for something that fit. Wiresless clearly wasn't working, and Jormungandr somehow couldn't quite start downloading in the limited confines of this house. Therefore, cables it was.

Upstairs, her mother finally woke up. Oihana had wanted to see whether herbs worked for the injured one before that confrontation, but alas.

Her mother shot a glare at Carly and Jarrod and walked right past them, into the living room. The aliens she ignored as well, and with silent harshness she spoke to Mahad, demanding what was going on. He didn't catch on to the angry undercurrent of her telepathic message and eagerly said, "Jor already made contact with the computer in that helmet! Math is a universal language!"

Her mother forced a tired smile, then said in spoken words, "But it's not going as well as it should be."

"Well, true. The earlier contact," he said with a nod at Carly, "... it was a fluke. Jor had some information from Enigma on their language and used that, but overall, that is very little to go on. Plus, this group has different dialect. Not that that's a problem, Jor can work it all out. But for advanced communication, we're gonna have to wait a while. So...miss Eir, they need to stay for a few days. Yes, here."

A cutting silence fell, even the aliens noticed. Their technician stopped fiddling with the helmet and the Nra'tex-ne sat up.

"Jormungand wants them to remain here," her mother said slowly.

"Yes, it's the perfect place. Hardly any neighbors and it's on the edge of the city. In case of emergency, you can always send them into the reservoir. Above that, the scanners here are primitive, Jor can easily intercept whatever the feds might pick up."

Another hard silence fell.

"No," her mother then said.

Mahad nearly freaked at hearing that. "What? But where would you have them go? Frank, Zhib, Melanie and me are all living in the middle of the city! Where would you have them go?"

"I have seen enough in my dreams to know the nature of their civilization. They are not welcome here."

Mahad had a rebuke ready, but swallowed his words. He stood up and faced her mother at eye level. "With all respect, you are being unreasonable. Don't you understand? This may be the first time in history that these creatures have contacted us humans on a completely non-hostile base. The effects of this can be immense. But we need to be able to communicate to get the benefits of this."

Her mother didn't seem to waver at all, she just continued vaguely shaking her head. "I won't have them in my house. If your System friend is so powerful, he can find another way. Discussion over." With that, she turned around and went back to the stairs from which she'd come, leaving behind a very somber atmosphere.

Now both Jarrod and Carly considered asking her for help in getting the monsters to Cable Lock, but her mother turned them down immediately. Their startled expressions as having received their very first telepathic communication were almost amusing.

"Mom, please!" Oihana called. Her mother kept walking, but silently reprimanded her for having brought them in without consulting her first. It was gentle, but the anger was inescapable.

**· · · · · · ·**

Nra'tex-ne was getting mildly confused with humans.

It wasn't the "car" that he had been made to travel in.

It wasn't the mysterious communication tools these humans had.

It was the screaming. Perhaps he would be less surprised if he'd ever taken the time to understand human society, but he was sure he'd be no less baffled. He was glad the humans couldn't understand him, since when he noticed the undignified way Jarrod had argued with Carly, he'd said a few things that probably would have offended them. To him, showing a female such disrespect was unimaginable, after all, they carried all the weight of the next generation.

To humans, that didn't seem to matter at all. Was that because human females generally were smaller than their male counterparts? They still bore the children much like yautja females did, he knew that much. Just how did respect work here?

Maybe Meidache was right about the humans being savage and uncivilized beyond redemption.

Maybe the hard meat were great pets.

Despite his high hopes, the behavior did not seem to be limited to Jarrod and Carly. The male that had met them at the road had taken to shouting at the apparent matriarch of the house, who seemed to endure it quietly. It was incredible. At least Carly screamed back, but she just let it happen? He felt a lot less comfortable now to know that this male was in charge of communication efforts.

First contact had been no more than a few words appearing in his helmet and an unnatural feeling of safety. How was this ever going to work out? He considered going after that matriarch, but someone else beat him to it.

Jarrod stepped up the stairway where the female was disappearing, spitting angry words at her. She calmly turned and at a level tone replied. At this, Jarrod lowered his tone as well, but the tense atmosphere remained. Karga'te said swearing was involved, which he apparently knew because humans here did it a lot. That wasn't good, but what did he know about alien cultures anyway? It certainly was more soothing to think that screaming and swearing was a cultural nature, much like his own kind roared in heated conversation. Not this often, though.

Then the female took a step back, and Jarrod raised his voice again. Nra'tex-ne did not like what he was seeing. Karga'te and Ghuran actually were amused, much to his disappointment, but Ohtremnek was at ease.

"Ohtremnek, if this goes out of hand...step in, restrained."

"Alright."

The conversation between Jarrod and the elder human female carried onward and seemed to be taking a calmer tone for a long time. But then, it seemed that Nra'tex-ne had worried for a good reason, just a moment after the elder female had raised her voice again, Jarrod pulled his gun and raised it her direction. Nra'tex-ne already saw what was coming, fearing this would get out of hand, but just a fraction later Ohtremnek had snatched the weapon from the male and pushed him to the ground. He looked at Nra'tex-ne, who nodded, then he fired his net to keep the human in place.

The female that Jarrod had threatened stepped back immediately and the scene froze. Jarrod started making his loud noises again, short, repetitive sounds over and over. Karga'te clicked his mandibles in laughter at it, but Nra'tex-ne barked at him to be quiet. This situation was too serious to mock.

Curiously, he then turned his attention towards the humans, uncertain as to what would happen now. It was the old female who then spoke up loudly, and apparently in anger. At him.

**· · · · · · ·**

"This is why I do not want them here! At the first sign of a weapon, they charge! They don't know how to judge our actions! Everything is an excuse for them to begin a conflict!" Bakarne said.

Rubbing his forehead, Mahad looked at the young man on the ground, who was groaning and cursing about this being the second time already.

"They just need some time to adjust," said he quietly to Bakarne, but the woman just shook her head in silence, again and again.

Mahad was at loss too. Sure enough, Jarrod's persuasive methods were unorthodox, but they had made Bakarne listen to the upside of the plan, he had even offered her a weapon for security ... and now they were back at the beginning.

Nra'tex-ne held an expecting look on his face, and Mahad found himself pitying the aliens. Despite their technology, they almost seemed like children. Oihana herself was a little surprised too. Both she and Mahad would have expected them to know the front and back end of a human weapon by now, and that if Jarrod's weapon had fired, he'd hit himself?

"Look, Jormungandr is not all powerful and he has a good point about that wound. For some reason, they are hauling around a wounded person, don't seem to have any medical care I can see ... they can't go to their ship like this and if they stay in the city..."

Bakarne held up a hand and he stopped. "I do not need a repetition, Mahad. My point holds true too, you have seen it a mere moment ago."

"They also have their honor," said Mahad simply.

"Well, that's awesome. Can someone appeal to that honor now and get me the fuck out from under this thing?" said Jarrod.

"Okay, look, let's do this. Bakarne, you try to make it clear that they are to remove the net, then make it be clear that the weapon he was using was a gift to you. See whether they are capable to understand reason."

For a moment, Oihana believed her mother had been pushed too far, but surprisingly, she only closed her eyes and said, "Alright."

She came down the stairs again, circling Ohtremnek as far as possible and jerked at the net covering Jarrod. It was anchored solid, so she looked up at the hunter and motioned him that he should remove it.

He seemed surprised and cast a quick glance at the older one, who was utterly confused. But then he nodded, and the younger retracted his net. Then he turned back to the table and Mahad. Bakarne took a few quick steps after him and frowned as she tapped him on the arm. When he looked at her, she held open her palm. After a nod from Nra'tex-ne, he handed her the gun.

She cast a closer glance at the wounded warrior, then she went to Mahad.

"Alright. I will allow them to stay, given that you promise to get them out if I say so."

Mahad found back his cheer and said, "Off course. Don't worry ... I think that if it would come to that, you'd be able to tell them that themselves...but you have my promise."

Bakarne gave him her short nod before she turned to her daughter. "Oihana, would you get the her...oh...I'll get the bandages. Mister Markens, you may take seat, we will take care of those cuts in a moment."

She went up the stairs, and Mahad eagerly returned to getting that helmet to work with his computer. Oihana let out a breath of relief.

As she took her jar to the table and then fetched some clean cloth, she overheard the cousins talk.

"Doesn't she have any adhesive bandages?" asked Jarrod, rubbing imaginary dust off his trench coat. Oihana shook her head and waved around the room, which was full with traditional wall paintings and handmade wooden furniture. She and her mother didn't necessarily abhor advanced stuff, they just weren't very fond of factory made things due to their psychometry.

"Never mind," Jarrod muttered, apparently thinking something about freaky science hater.

"That was rather nice of you, Jarry," said Carly with a grin. He just grumbled as he took a chair close to the wall, as far from the hunters as possible.

"You know, normally you don't care to do anything like giving up your best weapon to a complete stranger," Carly tried again, baiting him. She was quite tired of people not telling her things.

He shrugged, but immediately winced. The netting had made quite a few cuts, since this time it hadn't been on basic mode. He cast a weary look at Carly, whostill had the bandages from her injuries; they weren't healing quickly. It would be hard to hide his wounds from the rest of Cable Lock, so he'd have to lie. He hated lying, and Oihana liked that.

"Well, it was the logical thing to do. Jor's protecting them from any unwanted authority scans here, so it's good they are to stay here."

Carly arched an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because I'm leaving you here too."

**· · · · · · ·**


	8. Sharp Healing

**· · · · · · ·**

_2556 July 20_

_Hyperdyne Sector, planet New Chicago, GC Sector, North-East district of Gilsaer City._

**· · · · · · ·**

Ohtremnek looked at the outline of his claws while shifting through several spectra with his mask. He was bored.

It had been a while since the Jarrod had left and Nra'tex-ne had gone a side room where the oldest human had led him; he hadn't learned her name yet. Karga'te had claimed to smell an enemy on the wind and had gone out with Ghuran to do some more scouting; Ohtremnek thought he was just anxious. They'd left him behind, he wasn't fun enough. Not that he minded, he didn't have high standards for companions and would be bored with them too. Just that they put up with his unusual interest, and he'd put up with theirs. A rare trait among yautja.

Now they had found the humans, the fun seemed to be over. As he had suspected, the humans were in possession of an advanced digital system, which was currently tapping into their helmets to learn the basics of language. Maths were universal indeed, but it would take a while for it to work out words. There was nothing he could do except waiting. Waiting until there would be some progress. Waiting ... and waiting...

Attempts to learn the name of the human who seemed to operate the system had failed, every time they got somewhere, something on that screen before him would pull his attention away and he would forget about Ohtremnek. He'd walked off eventually, because surely there would be more of this tech in the house.

The matriarch was in the process of healing Nra'tex-ne's leg, or attempting such at least. A herbal scent came from a set of jars on the ground, which surprised him. Kea'chethi always said herbs that as nice as herbs were, advanced medicine was better. He'd expected the latter in a place that had computers everywhere, unlike at home.

The matriarch had Nra'tex-ne lie on his side so that his wound faced up. There was something rather peculiar about the idea that this weak creature would direct such a strong yautja, but then again, the wound needed care badly so there wasn't really shame in it.

The matriarch's cub was there too, burning a needle sterile in a candle flame. He wouldn't have seen the small thread she put through it if it hadn't been for his UV spectrum mode.

"You are supposed to help the human with communication," Nra'tex-ne growled, though it lacked impact due to his odd position.

"There is nothing I can do right now."

"You? There is always something you can do."

"Always at home, but not everywhere."

Nra'tex-ne fell silent and Ohtremnek put his attention to what the humans were going to do. Apparently they wanted to stitch up the wound. How were they gonna do that with such a small thread?

Given, he didn't have a clue how to stitch something up. Normally there were special medicines for wounds and who wanted a stitch anyway when that would take away the size from the future scar? Though with this situation it was the better option, they had no use for Nra'tex-ne if he could barely walk.

If they could communicate at level with these humans, they would be able to prove that the general opinion was wrong, that they had been right, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be opposition to the idea of working together with humans, a prey species.

Did these creatures even know in what danger they were? Probably not. The Code said one was not allowed to hunt unworthy creatures, but the elders ordering the elimination of witnesses was a whole other deal. Elimination of evidence was a general practice among most common clans, who endowed their hunters with self destruct sequence that took out a good two mile radius regardless whether or not there were unarmed creatures present. Now their own clan was trying to adapt to the general customs, he wasn't sure to how their interaction with prey would be regarded.

He wasn't particularly an expert in the smell of humans, but it seemed the matriarch just got a flash of fear, almost as if she'd known what he was thinking. But that couldn't be.

A sound behind him caught his attention.

**· · · · · · ·**

The chance of death seemed much more real than it had seemed before and her mother didn't seem too thrilled with it either. These were lawbreakers. As Frank had suspected, they had a code of conduct which involved being unknown to the human civilization. Now she understood why Mahad had laughed when she had asked why he had trouble believing this was happening right under their noses. How many times did the tiger walk over to talk to the gazelle?

Like a gazelle with its horns, mankind wasn't exactly defenseless, certainly not the one who'd just stepped into the room. Carly looked ready to kill something. She kept a rant in the back of her throat as she asked, "Is there anywhere I can sleep?"

"We only have one guest room, what is wrong with it?" asked her mother.

"It's on the ground floor. I keep hearing the excited geek squeals in your living room."

"Oh... excuse Mahad, it's not every day he gets to translate during the first contact with an alien nation," Oihana said.

"We don't have another bed, though there are empty rooms upstairs. Want to try the floor?" her mother asked.

"Whatever ... I'll just stay awake for a while, I don't trust them anyway. Maybe I'll randomly drop down. At least then I don't have to feel bad for being careless after I get killed."

"Well then, perhaps you could make yourself useful and get some water?" her mother said.

"What the cat for?"

"You're a uninvited guest, you're expected to contribute in this household."

"That's not what I mean, oldie, don't you understand slang? Why don't you just sew it shut?" said Carly, waving at the whole herbal pile.

"We were going to, but don't appear to have thread strong enough for their skin. On top of that, the edges of the wound have gangrene. We need to keep it as clean as possible until we can communicate with them and explain treatment. Would you please get the water now? There's a connection in the kitchen, third door down the hall."

Carly didn't move, grinning mischievously. "You know, why doesn't the kidget the water and I deal with the gangrene? I've got just the right thing for sewing monsters."

"You would just take a knife and cut it off? Without explaining to them?" asked her mother.

"With _pleasure_. I owe this guy some pain, you know."

"Not what I was getting at. They don't seem to know much about wounds, they might misunderstand."

"So what? Use your freaky powers and make it clear to them it's all fine. I won't go too far, I've done this before." She started rummaging in the inner pockets of her coat, from hence she pulled out two leather gloves. She dropped them on the table, then produced a thick thread wire with two handholds at each end; a strangling wire.

"Oihana, why don't you get that water?" her mother said.

She rushed out the door before she picked up anything unpleasant, grabbing a jar along the way. Behind her, her mother said something to Carly as she handed her a knife, then the door was closed.

Oihana felt the quiet hunter follow her before he actually got up and walked. At first it spooked her, but she felt no threat and relaxed. To her, the whole situation didn't weigh as heavy as to her mother; she lived in the moment. It was fun trying to figure things out, so she closed the kitchen door behind her.

The door opened and the alien stepped in. She smiled and turned to open the cabinets, looking for some towels. The shadow of the creature fell over her, the next moment she heard him open a drawer to examine it's content.

Oihana filled the jar, wondered along with the alien, then startled. Too late. He knelt down, dove under the sink and started wrenching the pipes open ... with his wrist blades.

"Don't don't don't!" She tried to pull his arm away, to no avail. Curiosity rather than reason drove this one. Pretty quickly he had dislodged the pipe system from the wall, causing water the spray out all over. He pulled back a bit, but when the water lessened he looked in again.

Oihana, dripping as a wet cat, stood up and filled up the jar, leaving the hunter for where he was. There wasn't much else he could ruin from this point on.

When she returned to the sick chamber, the sense of pain had become thicker and sharper, mingled with bitter humor. She took a breath and stepped in.

The hunter on the ground growled occasionally, more to bite back pain than as threat. Carly's hands were covered in neon green blood, but she didn't mind. On the contrary, she had schadenfreude. Around her were tiny pieces of skin and flesh, more coming as she kept cutting.

"At least she has stronger arms than I have," said her mother, looking a little on the green side. It had taken her mother quite a headache to explain the alien that the dead flesh needed to go off because else it would spread. They must have much better medicine, to be unaware of gangrene.

**· · · · · · ·**

Carly could work more neatly, but didn't care. Her patient suffered through the pain none the wiser that it could involve less blood all over the place, and Carly did a decent enough job for it to actually do some good.

He growled something, which she didn't care about and was going to pretend was a thanks. Carly got up the second she finished tying the thread. "You're welcome."

She went to the living room and dropped back on the couch.

Mahad did his best not to look at her. Squirmish, eh There was blood all over her arms, coat, everywhere. The bunny slippers were the only item she wore that had escaped cause she'd set them aside.

"What's the problem, can't stand blood? It doesn't even look red."

"It's still blood. Don't you want to get clean?"

"No thanks, I'm fine," she said, still grinning.

"You should get a bath," he muttered.

"Why? You said their blood is like 12 pH, it's sterile." Ok, to be honest the blood was really frustrating, more so because it smelled odd, stung on her skin a lot and was actually glowing, but she didn't want to care.

"Alkaline tends to remove hydronium ions from what it touches and humans are 70 percent water. Trust me, you don't want to wear clothing soaked with 12 pH on your skin for very long."

Carly rolled her eyes. "Human language, please."

"Molecular disintegration—"

"Try again."

"It's supersoap. Normal soap destroys weaker cells like bacteria. If your body is in contact with a large amount of that blood for a long time, then—"

"Going already. Hey, Oihana, do you people have a bathroom?"

"Yeah, but no water right now!"

"Awesome. Things keeps getting better and better."

**· · · · · · ·**

It was early in the afternoon and things had settled down a bit. Nra'tex-ne was resting, Karga'te and Ghuran had gone out scouting again after a brief return. Nra'tex-ne had suggested they sit down and try to speed up communication with the humans by learning each other basic understandings but Karga'te wasn't to be persuaded; he insisted someone was watching them.

Bakarne ran about, trying to figure out a way to store all these bloody aliens. They were quite capable of hiding themselves, the problem was more in setting a perimeter about where they were allowed to sleep and where they were not to come. Especially after Ohtremnek tried to pull the heater apart. He seemed to be the brainy one of the group and was consistently left behind to 'guard the fortress' while the other two did the roof-hopping. He didn't like sitting still.

Eventually, Bakarne managed to convey a message to Nra'tex-ne (who was now seriously getting suspicious about the random knowledge appearing in his head) that he was to stop the youngling from pulling things apart.

Melanie, Frank and Zib still had classes, but would come over as soon as those were finished. Mahad had taken off of his job for a day to be at this event.

The real work was yet to begin. Urgency commanded, learning the alien's language had to be done in less than the months it would take in normal style. So far they didn't even know why these four had come here and Bakarne couldn't read much in the rather chaotic minds without getting problems with the violent memories they held. Jormungand could only so much in cyberspace.

Oihana found herself, aside of a little tired, to be getting bored as well. For a few seconds, the newly forming sweatdrops on Mahad's dark skin were interesting, then her eyes wandered somewhere else. The familiar walls and furniture didn't offer much distraction either.

She had considered helping her mother, but she did not really want to be near her, not now. It was a rare case for her mother to resort to weapons, but she was in fact carrying the gun Jarrod had given her. It scared Oihana a little.

Another option would have been trying to talk to Nra'tex-ne, he seemed easy to reach on empathic level and Mahad could use some basic understandings to give to Jormungand. But Bakarne had insisted that he would rest and he had quite quickly fallen asleep.

Which left Ohtremnek, or Otter as Carly called him, as an option. The youngling was in comparison to the others calmer, but quite curious too and rather hard to influence. She could invite him to sit down and try to exchange word meanings. Or she could be random.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she reached out and felt where the youngling was. Attic.

"Oihana, where are you going? Weren't you going to...?"

"Oh...just...up. Tex needs to sleep, but he won't for long. You can talk to him later. I go up now."

**· · · · · · ·**

"Otter!"

Ohtremnek jerked up, mentally scowling at himself for being caught again. Not that he was afraid of the humans for whatever they could (not) do to him for exploring their structure, but he could just imagine the lecture Nra'tex-ne would give him.

The humans did have rather peculiar machinery. For example, this weird metallic box that had shelves on the inside with some bottles and things that might contain food. It was positively arctic on the inside for some reason. So of course he started pulling it apart. Technology such as this made him wish his clan was a little less loyal-to-nature in attitude, then his interest in mechanics and the function behind things wouldn't be seen as so odd. He'd love to take this along home and replicate it.

"That is _not_ your refrigerator."

There was tugging at his arm again by small human hands. Looking aside, he saw the one they called Oyana or something. Touching him again, which was annoying. Didn't this cub have any respect for the personal space of stronger lifeforms? Normal cubs would have learned that by now, he had at young age ... but he had to remind himself this was a female, they were dominant, they might be more freedom in this culture regarding physical touch. Or maybe not. He didn't know much about humans yet.

Then she had the audacity to pull at one of hair dreads.

Back at the clanship, anyone who would have dared such mockery would be be begging for jehdin-jehdin. This was a human though, unaware of customs. Besides, he _had_ been messing with their stuff without strict permission. He had been intend to put it back together, but that was besides the point now.

He stood up, closed the back of the cold box and wanted to leave. He made a mental note to get back at Karga'te and Ghuran for loading him with lair-watch.

The cub trailed after him, despite not being invited to. She even looked him right in the eyes when he stopped and turned. Again he reminded himself that these creatures probably had different habits; perhaps it wasn't a challenge to be staring one right in the eye in this culture.

Now, the cub stepped past him and turned in the doorway to the hall. She wanted him to follow.

Why not? It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

She led him down a stairway, into a cellar with a broken down wall. From there on was a path into an underground cave. It took a bit of walking for space to return.

When it did, it was massive. A wide room had been carved out, full of water basins. Nra'tex-ne had mentioned something like this, hadn't he? There was much more water here though.

Oyana pointed at the basins.

"They clean the water here, that's the weird stuff you smell, running right through that pipe. They just need to get rid of the algae ... the water gets dirtier in the city than how it enters though."

The sounds itself meant nothing to him, but somehow he got the impression it was water cleaning. That raised so much questions. The water didn't smell salty, and in UV spectrum looked as transparent as it should. More than curious now, he headed towards the dam further up the stream. He had no trouble jumping up the small dam, leaving her behind.

**· · · · · · ·**

Oihana climbing up the small ladder aside of the dam, right after him. Once she reached the top she looked around and searched. The cave was only dimly lit because the more light there was the better the unwanted algae grew. Before her the far lake stretched out, containing the second stage of cleansed water.

Right behind her, from where they'd come, the third stage was, and at the far end of the cave the raw water came in through a waterfall. Though not as brooding as it was up on ground level, it was still warm near the water. The ceiling was cool. It resulted in a peculiar little mist hovering over the water, illuminated by blue lights. She loved the place exactly because it was a little eerie.

Even if he'd not have his cloaking device on, she'd not be able to see him very well here, but she had to keep up in order to make sure he didn't mess up anything too badly.

Going purely by sense, she balanced herself across one of the thin pipes running across the lake. On the other shore she climbed across the rock wall, a little up and onward...

There he was, tracking the route of the pipes with some bewilderment. Maybe he was trying to figure out what the common purpose was, or maybe he wanted to take them apart. Hopefully the first. Either way he was curious. If they indeed were from a whole tribal civilization, they wouldn't be accustomed to things like pollution. Those were generally the result of greed for money, which Otter didn't know.

"Never seen people act so weird with water, have you?"

It annoyed him that she followed him, but he didn't have any intention of harming her for it, so why would she care? Rather, it made her feel a little offended. He was her guest, after all.

Without warning, he stood and jumped away. She heard the soft thump as he landed somewhere in the distance, then the familiar silence returned. She kept following. She came here a lot for the lack of people and the darkness, she knew it here very well, so she was quicker than he might have thought.

Ohtremnek moved around from place to place, making a mental map and once getting a rock thrown at him as he tried to turn a handle. Her aim was horribly off, but he got the message and remembered the flood that had come from the kitchen. His leader would probably scold him for that once too he found out it was his fault ... considering the amount of water present here, a flood would not help hiding.

He reached the waterfall eventually, where the only tech was a small water tester that regulated the amount of chemical cleansers released in the A-B filter, based on the algae and bacteria level in the water. The New Chicago planet had its own microbiology, which had been weak before the introduction of oxygen.

Ohtremnek took a sip of the waterfall. It tasted okay, it had a lot of minerals but he just ended up thinking those were poisonous to humans.

She tried her very best to plant an idea in his head. Maybe it'd even come across as a sentence.

Well, not quite, but she got him to understand bacteria. He actually knew what those were.

Now she could communicate better and was willing to teach, she had his attention. That shouldn't have resulted in him running off again, however.

Oihana groaned as he darted off into one of the halls to the side, wondering how she'd get him back again, when she got the sense this was a test.

Ah, so that's what yautja were like. Nows she smiled. He wanted to play hide-and-seek? She could do that.

There was no one in a good mile radius aside of some maintainer, herself and the alien, the rest was just animals. This would be a piece of cake. Make that birthday cake. It'd been so long she'd had a playmate her own age; the rest of the geek squad was older and not up for this kinda thing.

"Ten...nine...eight...and some more numbers that you don't know. Here I come!"

**· · · · · · ·**

The heat had been building up all day. The evening was worst for the humans and best for the yautja. Bakarne's house had a terrace with window that faced the hillside and was most shadowed, so the small group of people had taken residence on that end of the house. Mostly for Mahad's convenience.

In the wide living room, Melanie was at the table scribbling in a notebook, while Nra'tex-ne and Mahad demonstrated slow progress. Food was a pretty common indication, but Nra'tex-ne only sparingly accepted it and kept pushing the topic.

Frank and Bakarne sat in a corner, speaking together on what could be done about their predicament. Jormungand could probably hide the water disturbance from the regulator, but fact was it needed to be repaired soon. Food was another issue off course. Again, Jormungand could help by rerouting a small transport or even make an anonymous order, but he couldn't stop people from seeing a large delivery being made to a district that only homed the financially weak.

Zib had not been allowed to come from his parents after all, but they'd try to get him over tomorrow. Mahad needed him for seeing basic patterns, he was the best at that ... days like these it seemed so much easier of Jormungand would just download himself to an android, but given, that would take away all his influence on the long therm. Besides, there were no androids in the entire district.

Bakarne was half of mind to call Oihana back and get her to help out. Together they might have a much broader range of information, but she didn't want her too involved. Besides, it was absurd she couldn't get far enough with her own telepathy. Something something food, elders, hungry, offers? Where to go with that? She had some sense of their names and desires at most.

The two teenagers outside were on the track of enemies, somehow. One of them was, technically, the other tagged along.

Awareness. Bakarne wondered what that would be worth.

**· · · · · · ·**

After a lot of hopping around without finding anything, Ghuran was fine with laying back on the terrace, but Karga'te didn't allow himself any rest. There was something on the wind still, something that had been eluding them for a while now.

He looked over at his brother within the house, as he sat across of the eldest male human. Numbers they were now exchanging, it looked like how one thought a child how to count. It was rather silly.

Sometimes, the cranky female human at the table would add something in her own sound and after a while, the others joined in. He couldn't recall their names and didn't particularly care to anyway.

The human language was completely devoid of any form of growls and throaty noises and baring their teeth apparently was _laughter_ , a good sign as opposed to a threat. Karga'te had learned this a while back during his little explorations, but he hadn't told Nra'tex-ne yet. It amused him to see his brother feel guilty every time they laughed, thinking he had offended them in some way.

But then, the wind would get his attention again. This time, he was sure it hadn't been a deception or a fart from his comrade. He kicked Ghuran awake and pointed up the rocky wall that the back of the house was facing.

"What? Nothing there," Ghuran mumbled.

"It's gone now, but something moved there. Come on, we have to check it out."

"Oh shut the pauk up. I'm done with chasing your phantom winds."

"Fine, stay on your lazy ass, I'm going," snarled Karga'te.

Quickly he crossed the open terrain behind the house, and started scaling the wall. It was rather steep, but not for a high stretch. Soon he was able to go on his feet again, further up the hill.

The peak wasn't anywhere near yet, not that he needed to go there anyway. Without his mask on he could detect the scent a little easier than he would have done normally. It should be around here. It had been there first during the night-scouting around Carly's house, but never clearly...

He rounded two peaks, then it grew stronger. Now he had something to follow. They were on the move.

There was no warning however when he found them.

Two there were, straight before him, between two walls of stone. Perhaps had even been waiting for him to show up, his climb hadn't been the most quiet for yautja ears. They flanked out, one to the left, the other to the right and up a rock.

Their faces were hidden by their masks, but he recognized their scent. Their dreadlocks were shorter than his and their armor of a very different style. Part of him was relieved that they weren't of his own clan, part of him worried about what they would do.

"A curious sight, down there. It proves once more there is something very wrong with the Nirevé tribe," the left one snarled.

"It's none of your business," Karga'te said.

"It is. You broke the Code, you have interacted with weak prey and given them information on our existence. Your brother, he is learning them the yautja language, is it not? Softmeat knowing hunter is a case of all yautja."

Karga'te twitched his lower mandibles across each other. "You brought us into this situation in the first place. We gave you no reason to fire at our ship, traitors!"

The answer was almost a roar. "What? We are the traitors? Then what about what you did? We were fully in our right! The Nirevé tribe deserves no honorable treatment!"

Karga'te couldn't care less what the Nirevé tribe was seen as, for his part they were disgraced like many tribes said, but he had no ear for random accusations.

"What we did? Enwarm me, for I a mere unblood who knows none beyond the extend of his own nails," he said in a fake humble voice.

"Would you claim you don't even know what happened?" said the right one.

"I wouldn't, I just did. Do you need it spelled out?"

"You're just trying to save your skin. Your treachery has gone beyond our clan, it is for the entire proud race of the yautja, you're an illness!"

They both extended their wristblades.

Karga'te tensed and tried to see whether they had any lasers hidden, but there was no time for him. They attacked.

**· · · · · · ·**


	9. Expendable Concepts

**· · · · · · ·**

Ohtremnek understood the human cub had some expectations of a game, since once she found him (awfully easily) she expected him to track her. With his mask and speed that was easy enough, and boring, but he was interested in whether she'd pull off her speed a second time.

She did somehow. A third and fourth time too. She had the disadvantage of her limited sight, yet she always seemed to know where he'd gone.

By the fifth time, he was reconsidering whether the files were really wrong about how well humans smell. So next time it was his turn, he went by water to mask himself.

She found him as easily as before. That left him to consider whether maybe, just maybe, the sight of the gods was a real thing. Why not? She certainly seemed capable of spirit speech. He'd first noticed the feelings she projected whenever he tried to take something mechanic apart.

It was a myth of misfortune. In most cases the cursed one would turn a badblood; either by becoming a merciless warrior who grew bored with the code and began killing comrades, weakening them with his mind power, while others became weak and had too much mercy for their prey, eventually turning against their comrades as well in defense of prey. It was puzzling to say the least.

Stories of such badbloods told of demonic entities that made their voice sound in the head of others with the sound of thunder, driving them crazy. On a more scientific level there wasn't much, though hardmeat hives reportedly spoke in this tongue.

Opposed to those legends, the spirit speech of this human cub was gentle and no form of sound at all. It just came as plain knowledge, like a memory came to mind. He had to strain really hard to distinguish thoughts and feelings that she projected on him, impulses that he normally would wave away as random and ignore. Most of the messages came in feelings : positive, negative, approval, disapproval, curiosity, questioning and so on.

Now, she tapped him on the arm and made noises.

"What?" he said.

She took a few steps away from him, then turned to face him. Her direction was to the small cave where they had entered. He was fine with heading back, he had explored most of this water facility now and understood the basics. Well, as far as he could judge how much he understood. His guess had been right, the humans needed their water to be cleansed before drinking it. Why not, they were rather weak in performance, so their stomach probably was as well.

Her face changed a little, and her motions became hurried, but she wouldn't go without him.

He tried to focus on any impulses in his own thoughts, anything that didn't belong ...

Danger?

Right then, she broke into a run towards the entrance. Ohtremnek had no trouble keeping up and stopped her just as she was about to head into the cave that led up. He wanted her to try and give some indication as to what was going on, because he didn't notice anything down here that was danger.

She looked him in the eyes briefly, then a thought flashes through his head. Not here. The other clan ... she knew that?

He shot past her. The others might need him. But in the middle of the corridor, almost annoyed, he remember they sorta kinda had an agreement with the humans, and he had no idea where exactly the danger was. Where ever, he couldn't just leave the human cub here with his scent all over her, that might endanger her.

Grudgingly, he slid back down the rocky path, hauled the girl under his arm and invisibility cloak and sprinted back up.

**· · · · · · ·**

Karga'te wiped the blood from his visor. It hadn't quite gone as he had imagined. When faced with two blooded warriors while he had nothing but his wristblades and a spear, it had been a safe bet he'd go down. Off course, having walked into them put a bit of a dumper on the whole 'exciting last battle' thing, but it wasn't as if he'd planned on dying in honor or anything similar code worthy.

Yet he was alive.

His plans of tricking one of his attackers had gone rather awkward as Ghuran had showed up and joined in the hopeless battle. The fool probably had expected only one opponent, but this was a little too much to deal with fair and square.

Right now, he stared at the severed arm of one of them; Ghuran had had a lucky shot with one of their clumsy cut-nets. The owner of the arm was five meters or so away, being strapped in by Ghuran with said net. For once, it was good both of them were total klutzes at building their own nets.

A little bit further was the second one, unconscious. When Karga'te had been down, feigning unconsciousness and Ghuran in 'combat' with the other, that one had spotted an approaching human, which he'd picked up the throat to see whether it was a worthy kill. She'd produced a weapon from her sleeve and shot him to the knee. Karga'te had tackled him at that point.

He hadn't thought much of it, but something had to have been wrong with their masks since hey hadn't spotted the weapon she carried. That might've been the vital turning point, Nra'tex-ne already mentioned the so called cybersnake could so such things. Now he owed his life to a fake spirit, yay.

Pushing himself off the wall, he tried to think up what they should do now. The bodies couldn't remain here if they decided to kill them. The blood they could erase, but hiding an entire yautja body was another case. The Homeworld was very particular about not leaving anything for humans to find.

Ghuran finished tying up the other one and came over to him.

"That was fun, what now?"

 _Maybe Ghuran likes being hit on the head with blade hilts_ , Karga'te thought. That certainly would explain his often stupid behavior.

Mental voice again, telling him how he himself had walked into two...

Though all in all, this somewhat embarrassing outcome was better than being dragged back to a hostile ship, one that wasn't even that of his own clan.

Something behind him hit the ground and yelped. As both the yautja turned, they saw Ohtremnek on a ledge with one of the human cubs at his side; he had dropped her there and was now surveying the scene with mild interest.

"Need any help?" he thrilled.

**· · · · · · ·**

The situation could have been worse, Nra'tex-ne thought. Karga'te and Ghuran could have been captured, their hostess Bakarne killed.

The situation definitely could have been better though. He had no idea what to do with their captives. According to their captives, the opposing clan hadn't fired at the Nirevé ship unprovoked. There was talk of some kind of treachery. Sadly, the hunters had no intention on giving any details, insisting that the must already knew.

Bakarne spread a nervous scent, her hand was still on the weapon that Jarrod had given her. She had become a little more relaxed over the course of the afternoon, but now she was fully tensed again. Nra'tex-ne had tried to ensure her everything was alright, but the limited communication was no help.

Crazy as it seemed though, he was fairly certain this female possessed some sort of sight of the gods, allowing her to see straight through him. She seemed to have known something was wrong even before the scent of Karga'te's blood had blown down the hill; a scent she shouldn't be able to smell anyway. On top of that, Ohtremnek said her cub led him right to where the battle had taken place. For even Ohtremnek, whom Nra'tex-ne seriously suspected was a secret atheist, to suggest the supernatural worried him, but there were more immediate concerns.

On their first day in this house, already they had made things more difficult for the host. Nra'tex-ne felt a little guilty for it in regard to their hostess, spirit speaker or not. Bringing in prisoners was in no way polite, especially when visiting a house without prior invitation.

"There will be more," said Ohtremnek, snapping him out of his chain of thoughts.

Nra'tex-ne clattered his mandibles irritably. "Let's hope them finding us was a fluke."

"Probably, but they've been trailing us some time since we came at Carly's house. I caught some suspicious scent back then too," said Karga'te, pacing around slowly. "They might have told the others by now."

In the middle of the room were the two captive yautja on their knees, bleeding mostly from the cutting robes.

"Can't beat our tie-up tricks." Ghuran muttered as one of them tried to wrestle free again, taking a bit of pride in his skill with tying up.

From the halls came the younger humans' voices, softly talking to each other. The stench of blood filled the air, creating a sharp contrast to the calm chirping.

Nra'tex-ne would swear Bakarne kept an eye on Karga'te. She was tense around him in ways she wasn't with the others. What had she seen? Had Karga'te done something, again? He was no stranger to his brother behaving without honor, but he'd gotten better of the years ... at least within sight.

If she was a spirit speaker, maybe she caught something invisible to Nra'tex-ne.

Karga'te would be thinking about what to do just as much as Nra'tex-ne himself.

The past had been easy, hunt, defend honor, mate ... this wasn't simple. There was no clear honorable way to proceed. The Path lay in darkness and the Code had no guidance.

"We could place them under the Oath of Sharinma," he tried anyway.

"Why would they keep it? The Oath of Sharinma only exists within our clan," said Ohtremnek.

Sharp silence again, but not for long.

"Wait, Karga'te, why didn't you say something earlier? You said you smelled them before," Nra'tex-ne asked.

"I did. You said I had been smelling too much and sent Ohtremnek to scout."

Painful silence, this time.

One of the captive hunters clattered their mandibles. "Foolhardy, aren't you four? You're deserters and traitors of the Path! At least make up your mind on what you want."

Nra'tex-ne clenched his wrists at the accusation. In no way they were deserters. They were runaways, but not permanently. They'd submit themselves to their punishment once they had proven their point.

"That is not true, we are—"

"Justified? Ha. There was never anything truly honorable about the Nirevé tribe! You mess too much with the way of the hunt."

Nra'tex-ne wouldn't have lost his temper if it hadn't been so long without rest or food or proper medicine. He stood up from the couch and delivered a blow across the mandibles of the captured yautja, leaving a line of blood where his claws had scraped skin.

He shouldn't have done that, as the assaulted directly hit his head forward against Nra'tex-ne's injured leg. It caused him to tumble backward while the captive hunter laughed.

"I am Raun Tah, my companion is Zxuarde and you are Nra'tex-ne. We know you. We've heard of you when we were aboard, always sticking up for your badblood brother..." He paused at that word, waiting for a snarky reply, but instead Karga'te chuckled. He never interrupted his pace from one end to the room and back.

"If you are so strong, then why did we overcome you?" Karga'te rattled. "We weren't even good warriors. We're malnourished and incompetent. What does that say about you?"

The other hunter snarled. "You know you played dirty. You used weapons that we did not counter by honor. Those nets of yours, the dirty human with its trick and we couldn't see!"

Ghuran was about to bark something back, but Nra'tex-ne, on his feet again, silenced him.

"Enough words on this. You two, we have no knowledge of what happened aboard your ship. We do admit to running away from our clan, but it is for reason other than—" he started, trying his utmost best to remain calm.

"It just shows your general disloyalty," said Zxuarde.

It might have been one of those silent tense moments again, if it hadn't been for the low rumble in Nra'tex-ne's throat. Their hostess was present, so he deemed it not right to resort to a battle to settle the insults. Bakarne had previously shown discontent with random violence, he was pretty sure his previous outburst had already made a bad impression.

"This all means that if they walk, they talk," said Karga'te. "After all, why would you two _not_ say anything? Honor is relative, right? Any oath we ask you to make wouldn't count anyway."

Raun Tah spread his mandibles, to roar or reply, but Karga'te decked him in the face before he got a sound out.

"I have a better idea." He walked past the two and then around to Raun Tah's back. "You should also know that we ran out of hardmeat on our home planet a while ago. None of my immediate ancestors were blooded by defeating one."

"How pathetic you are doesn't matter when you fought with tricks."

"Oh, but it does before the Black Warrior, right, brother?" Karga'te cast a look at Nra'tex-ne. Before anyone could stop him, Karga'te grabbed Zxuarde's dreadlocks, pulled his head back and extended his wristblades through his throat.

Nra'tex-ne lurched forward and pushed his brother to the ground, but it was too late. The body of the dead hunter remained upright for a few seconds, then slumped down.

Karga'te crawled up and created a distance between himself and his brother.

"Murderer..." Nra'tex-ne wanted to roar it out, but it sounded just too soft.

Karga'te threw him a daring look. He might've laughed had this been a lighter mood.

"You would have let them walk even if you knew they would betray us. They would have come and killed us and killed the rest of our clan. It's survival of the smartest now, brother. Didn't you see how honor is held high, or rather, low, at our ship right now? Only the primal rules continue to count." There was something so daring, so challenging in the his brother's eyes that Nra'tex-ne considered cutting of a mandible from that defiant face, just to teach him a lesson.

He didn't, because he knew that Karga'te had a point. Nataeloixren Mra _had_ kept back medicine, these two hunters _had_ planned to betray their position, kill them ... disgrace the name of Nirevé forever.

Still, it was murder. Killing an honorable yautja that could not defend was a great crime, regardless of the situation.

The door opened and Carly walking into the room. Her noises didn't make any sense to him, but it was clear she was addressing Nra'tex-ne. She pointed lightly at Karga'te, at the surviving hunter, her teeth flashing in a wide grin while pronouncing some word like :"Awsum" and some other things.

She agreed with his brother about the kill.

Karga'te figured the same. "See ... even the local wildlife says so. The rules do not count here anymore."

Nra'tex-ne was with his back at the other captured yautja, but smelled a hint of fear for death.

When Karga'te walked past him, he found that he didn't turn to stop him.

When the sound of wrist blades cutting through yautja skin reached his crest, he didn't move.

When the body hit the ground, he didn't turn to strike at his brother, regardless of the Code biting at the edges of his mind.

He and his allies, they were going to live past today.

He thought at the chaos that had been the ship and how he had seen some of the unblooded in the kehrite try to kill each other. He had told himself they weren't serious ... but they would have become if the female yautja had not stopped them. Had the Code really lost it's power now? Maybe it never existed in the first place ... no, he was not allowed to think that way.

**· · · · · · ·**

The stars crawled up the night sky, doing little to replace the fading sunlight. Still, she walked slowly. Today, she could afford to.

Melanie and Frank tried their best to scrub the bloodstains from the rocks without having to ignite flashlights. The bloodied sand they gathered in bags, because Mahad had scouting hunters could smell it.

Carly reached the top of the path. "Need any help?"

"No!" snapped Frank, though unable to hide that his nerves were turning over hours.

Carly shrugged. "Fine."

"You shouldn't be outside," said Melanie.

Frank climbed a little further upward along the trail while Melanie dropped a rock she was done with.

"What'd I do to get the cold shoulder, hmm?" Carly sat down on a large boulder on the edge and watched her feet dangle above the depth. "You guys are acting as if this is all my fault. That's annoying. All I said what that it would be better to have them dead. I know how things like this go, I've seen it all my life."

They just moved on without another world. It didn't matter that much to Carly whether they had heard, they'd probably not change their mind. She just didn't have anything better to say to deal with this all.

Someone else responded though. Carly almost fell off her rock as Bakarne suddenly stood next to her.

"You don't care for their opinion anyway," the woman said.

Carly shrugged, but was a little spooked by Bakarne's sudden appearance. The woman looked alien herself in the evening light.

"You didn't mind, did you?" Carly said. "You would have killed the one that attacked you up here if you'd have known how to deal with that gun. I asked Oihana."

The answer came in a short nod and, "Off course. I am not obliged to show any morals towards those whose morals are the perfect opposite of mine. If I would, it wouldn't be seen as moral anyway. That said, I didn't care they died, but I'd like these four we've got here not to adopt that attitude towards us."

"Did you come up here just to tell me that or for some other reason?"

"Did you come up here to see the sunset?"

Carly snorted with a laugh. "I came up here for some quiet time. Never would have thought I needed it, but after sitting still with my grandparents for two weeks... heh."

"There is your answer."

Bakarne seemed ready to move further up, following the small path through the cliffs, but Carly wasn't quite done yet. "You just leave your kid alone down there in the house?"

"Yes. The wild ones are out, scouting again. For good reason, I believe. Nra'tex-ne has his supposed honor and the worst Ohtremnek will do is cause another flood."

Carly laughed, Bakarne only smiled mildly. "Well then, evenin, misses Eir," Carly said, a hint of mockery in her voice.

"Good evening. And it's miss Eir."

As Bakarne went after Melanie and Frank, Carly had noticed the bags she had carried. Maybe she went to perform some sort of ritual? Whatever, she didn't quite care.

Now, Carly did look at the fading sunet. From the edge of the higher part of the city it was much clearer to see and there wasn't quite as much dirt in the air up here. It had been a long time since she had looked at the sky. It made her feel a little lonely, but that wasn't such a big deal either.

Or so she liked to tell herself. After a quarter of an hour, she had had enough quiet and went down again, almost falling another time as she stumbled in the darkness.

**· · · · · · ·**


	10. Urban Legends

**· · · · · · ·**

_2556 July 25_

_Hyperdyne Sector, planet New Chicago, GC Sector, North-East district of Gilsaer City._

**· · · · · · ·**

For the umpteenth time, Melanie looked at her watch.

It was near noon, they should have been here a hours ago. She was skipping class, an important one, there better be some fruit to it.

Over the past five days, translations had proceeded to the point of crude little message pads being created for communication. Jormungandr really was amazing, with what it could produce in such short time, though Melanie could give herself a pad on the shoulder too for acquiring some samples online on their language. If only a little, it had helped since Jor didn't have much social knowledge.

Food. They needed something to eat for their clan until their ship was fixed. Their enemy had the amazing decency to not attack them while they were down, even though their ship apparently was in a better state. According to Bakarne, they had a system of honor, much like the human race (supposedly) had its altruism.

Melanie wasn't too sure how altruistic their own motifs for helping were. With the clairvoyants she never quite knew what to expect, Mahad was all over the pursuit for knowledge, Zib thought it was a game. Melanie herself just went along because this was the latest project of their gang, and it had Jor's interest and he called the shots. Even if that meant waiting down in this brooding tunnel, just to get some data.

She had tied her jacket around her waist and was working down her fourth bottle of water, sitting on an empty container. Around her were various odd devices, the product of surrounding junk and boredom. The city worked like a greenhouse on the tunnels beneath it, keeping the warmth trapped and never really letting it cool down.

It was just a slight movement that caught her ears, a distant scrape of metal, electricity, oh so familiar to her sharp hearing. Something alien and cloaked was nearby. Instinctively she tensed and looked around, from one end of the tunnel to the other. Nothing moved. She considered calling out one of the yautja's names, but dropped the idea. If it was one of the jokers, she'd find out soon enough, but if it was an enemy, her knowledge of their names could betray them.

There, in the shadows. An elusive line against the wall. She wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't known what to look for. It was watching her too, but why had it taken an interest? Quickly she looked down again, maybe she still could pretend she hadn't noticed it ...

Drat. She had been fidgeting with her tool-ring and on it was a little knife of some sort of black metal. Ohtremnek had dropped it a few days ago by accident, she had found it and he had let her keep it. Metal detectors didn't respond to it, so she had kept it...shit.

She looked up again. The outline was much closer.

Melanie's breath accelerated, but she kept her eyes fixed on it. Running? She wasn't fast enough.

The hunter tilted it's head. It meant curiosity, Melanie knew. She dared hope she wouldn't end up dead or abducted.

Suddenly, the Yautja charged forward. She saw its arm stretch out, heard the a blade extending, heard the feet splash in the pools of water. Instinctively, she curled up and put her arms around her head. The blade struck the wall right next to her.

"Zin tarei hsan!" She had said it before she could restrain herself. Oh great, now the stranger definitely knew she was involved...

A soft clattering. Melanie didn't look up, but then she felt a large hand in the back of her neck, pulling her to sit straight up, the other hand took the tools form her. She felt one of the claws prick in her neck and she squeaked.

But the hand let go quickly and Melanie shuffled backward, nearly off the container.

The hunter seemed more interested in getting the little black tool off the ring. Or maybe not. What remained of the ring was tossed back at her and the hunter said : "Ellos'de thau'yim ri'tca hveir-de? Ellos'de ka'hr uilte?"

She understood "you" and "this", but nothing more. Probably she was being asked where she had gotten it. No way she could tell. Her mind quickly put together the best option.

"M-di yuta."

**· · · · · · ·**

Karga'te waited.

It didn't take very long before she reemerged. Leaning out of the window slightly, he trailed her with his eyes as she made her way back to the edge of the city, finally.

This morning, he had said things couldn't possibly be more dire. He took that back.

The Jormungandr had warned them on the way here there were other yautja hanging around their destination. Two, precisely. Hm, took it long enough, Karga'te had known them to be there for a while. Granted, he hadn't known how many.

Somehow, the invisible thing had spread some field or whatever that prevented small areas from behind scanned by those hunters. All he had to do was stay under the wind, and he could tail them.

He was surprised they had sent _her_.

Kea'chethi was a skilled but unpopular unblooded, an illborn like him. Her defect had not shown immediately, only as she aged and it became apparent she had terrible eyesight. Normally, it would have meant a life in servitude, never leaving the door. At best. Illborn were supposed to die. A few managed to raise up, usually the smart and strong ... Kea was of the smart variety. In fact, she was smart enough to do something, somehow, to not only fix her eyes but actually see better than all others.

Maybe that was why she had been given special permission to scout, they now had some idealized idea of just how good she could see. Idiots. She got ahead because she was smart, not magically sighted. She probably had spent half her time observing human culture to get a hang of the place. Like how the city stuck together, or how the vaguely alkaline scent of a singular human female, not fully matured, leading into abandoned tunnels at the edge of the city was totally not ordinary.

It could mean two things : Kea either knew now Nra'tex-ne had been right, or she had been told nothing about what had happened between Meidache and Nra'tex-ne and her actions just now were pure curiosity. He quickly dismissed the latter, if so she had no reason to be on the look out for suspicious humans.

When he was absolutely sure the huntress was gone, he descended from the empty building and sprinted into the tunnel. Seeing the environment was clear, Karga'te decloaked.

The human that had was waiting here tensed up, but quickly relaxed when she recognized him. She smelled too much like Kea'chethi. On the ground before the container lay scattered tools, broken off the ring the human now held. He spotted the hardmeatshell knife ... oh shit.

Judging by the crumbled wall behind the human, Kea had not been happy to realize their little contact mission had been successful. Karga'te didn't care for why, it was news no matter the reason.

And he smelled a little human blood.

Getting onto the container he reached for the human, but she jumped off. Karga'te didn't have the patience to get Jor to translate he was just going to check for something. Quickly he jumped into her direction, landing right at her side. Before she could back away further, he took her by the shoulder and pushed her on her knees. Kneeling down himself, he had a closer look at her neck.

As he had suspected, a tiny puncture was in the skin. It probably contained a sherdi spore now; a convenient biological tracker when one knew how to use it.

Right, how to get it out without the human here freaking out.

She tried looked back, emitting that fearful scent, but no screaming or struggling at least. He rubbed thumb and index finger together, then pointed at her neck.

Muttering a coarse yes in her language, he took that to mean she got it.

Kea was so fond of her spores, really, she ought to know better. Karga'te removed a short needle from his gauntlet and pinched it right where the tiny wound was.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Someone else been here," Oihana muttered when she arrived.

"Yeah ...another hunter," Melanie said while sliding off the container. "It put a tracker or something in my neck, Karga'te took it out ... he must still be around here somewhere."

"Why do you trust them more now for that? You didn't trust them much before, nothing changed since then."

"Don't read my mind without permission!" Melanie crossed her arms and turned away. Then she spotted Carly's silhouette in the tunnel opening. "What is _she_ doing here?"

"Oh, I just like to keep an eye on my would-be murderers. Just in case back stabbing will occur," Carly dryly said as she walked down the tunnel.

"You're not coming along."

"You gonna stop me?"

They stared each other down for a moment, but before anything became of it, a loud clattered broke the tension. Rubble and a metal roofplate came down the tunnel, Bakarne was clearing the way. Behind her was Nra'tex-ne, walking alright but with obvious discomfort, even to a human eye.

"You two, come along," Bakarne said soothingly, though with a threatening eye to either of them. Carly spit on the ground and lazily walked past Melanie.

"So, where are we going?"

"To what we now will call the alien fridge," Oihana said.

The humans went ahead in a spread group, three yautja followed.

Deeper into darkness, humid rotting air met them.

Their destination was a massive underground lake. Alien moss grew up the walls and spread across the dirt covered floor, this place had formed naturally and the ceiling was unstable. Upon their entrance, Jor turned on a dim light source, which the children had activated under its guidance.

Carefully, the humans and yautja made their way across the slippery plants, reaching a lone water post that never had been finished. There had been plans to reroute the lost water, which had ultimately been abandoned and Jor had ensured the place would be forgotten.

Down a slope was the lake's closest shore, the end was in another cave far beyond sight and light. Across the shores lay a variety of mutated reptiles, the results of genetic engineering gone wrong. Some only a meter long, others up to twelve. The Ash Generation and their strange existence wasn't the only legend of the city, though many of the rumors were false. The crocodiles didn't have hundreds of extra eyes for example, they only had two or three.

"There are mutant alligators in our ridiculously spacious sewers," Carly said slowly. "Yoh, Oihana, you and your mom are like monks, right? I'd like you to file a complaint with the universe for me, I don't think it's taking my existence serious."

"We can do that," Oihana said with a light laugh.

"Seriously for a moment. It's like this city was built to hide something," Carly continued. "I always wondered about what? It can't be these beasts, these things are useless."

Melanie rolled her eyes as obviously as possible and opened the door to the cabin. Mahad followed right away, but Bakarne and Oihana stayed outside. Frank had not come, in his own words he was too much of a wussy for the upcoming event.

"You know what else is weird? That they can eat our food," Carly said as she joined them in the cabin.

"There's some theory that these hunters, the Yautja, originate from Earth," Mahad said. "Their culture is primal, yet they have technology so advanced that it could not have developed from a hunter-gatherer culture, since it would require manufacturers and a more dense society, as well as a social approval for science. They may have obtained the technology from another species, one that visited Earth. As such, they can feed on roughly similar things as we do."

"Really? Why are there no records?"

"According to Jor there well may have been, but these were either kept under lock by some organization. It probably got lost in the first large scale machine war."

"Really."

Ghuran and Kargate were already moving down the slope, they had understood what they were here for soon enough. But Otter remained behind, wondering rather similar things as Carly did. Namely, the edibility of these beasts, since he himself had discovered the hard way half of human would caused digestive issues.

Oihana psychically showed him their diet, consisting of amphibians and fish that found they way here by land and small streams, as well as the mosses and plants, and occasionally each other. Crocodiles were now supposed to be omnivores or cannibals, but these were no more crocodiles due to an excess of genetic tampering.

That last part may have come across wrong, since Ohtremnek nearly ran after the others and shouted something about cursed flesh; their tribes had zero familiarity with genetics. Just in time, she used a mythic monster parable to explain.

Weren't there hunters who ate the flesh of some demon serpents in their mythology? These beasts? Made by dishonorable deities.

He got it. Not knowing how to convey answers in Spirit Speech, he simply nodded, a gesture he had picked up from observation. Then he joined the other two.

Yautja did not normally thank for favors, lest those who paid them were of great honor. Otter was no exception, but not out of conscious choice. It simply never occurred to him, to owe gratitude to a weaker creature.

The three engaged the first crocodile together, using nets and blades. The flock exploded in frantic twisting, snapping jaws and crashing tails, giants to battle and the smaller to water. Stronger than the yautja, but only for a short time; illogical lifeform as they, the hunters soon got the upper hand.

They weren't neat about killing, death stroke was only the start of the blood bath. They skinned them, turning the water a thick dark purple in the blue lights, the metallic scent of the blood polluting the once quiet haven. Child's play for them, carnage for the humans.

The crocodiles in the water reemerged, smelling blood and food, deceptively easy to obtain. Karga'te was the first to figure out they could bait them, blind them with the an overload of scent as they had not experienced before.

Oihana had felt the snap of death before, but never this much. Still, rather this than the nightmares she got from the corpses; they had chopped them up and worked them away into caves. If not for the intent to give the crocodiles to the yautja as food, they would have fed to mess to the flock here.

Melanie was fumbling with her laptop, calculating the final amount of meat and trying to find out how to get the conservation powder Jor had kindly obtained for them into this place.

Mahad was watching the killing in disgusted fascination, filming it even with the intent to show Zib.

Carly too watched and feigned indifference, but she was actually observing oh so closely to get an idea on the fighting tendencies of her enemies.

The hunters moved further down the cave.

Her mother kept a psychic check on the three, ensuring they would not go too far.

Predators became prey.

Silence.

Tex was here too, but she had done her hardest to ignore him.

His still form, on the stairs before the cabin, was a stark contrast to his aura, full of doubt and movement. Oihana found the thoughts of suicide that occasionally surfaced in him far more terrifying than the weapons he carried. Still, he was reconsidering.

Bakarna sat down aside of her and laid an arm around her daughter's shoulders.

"Don't lose yourself now, alright?" she whispered.

"It's okay. I think soon he'll be able to tell himself he isn't that bothered by what his brother did."

**· · · · · · ·**

Karga'te unceremoniously dropped a chunk of bloody meat into his brother's lap.

"Eat, it's good."

Nra'tex-ne tore himself away from contemplating a network of codes, rules of conduct and a waking nightmare of having had to violate them a few times to many.

His brother was standing before him, the feeble metal stairs creaking under their combined weight. With how utterly satisfied he looked, like one who had returned from an challenged and _worthy_ hunt, he spawned unfathomable irritation in Nra'tex-ne. Karga'te really didn't care for all the violations he had committed in the past days, did he?

Nra'tex-ne refrained from the undignified urge to lash out. If anything, he should have done that before.

The meat was much like junk food, tough and without real nutrition. But it satisfied his hunger better than anything the humans had produced so far.

"How much?"

"Didn't count. I'm guessing if it's on ration, we can feed the clan for about a week," Karga'te said.

"I asked the Jor. There are no more places like this," Ohtremnek called from down the shore. "But a week is a long time for pepped up mechanics to get things working. Not optimally, mind you."

Right. Excellent.

Thought of ritual suicide were starting to sound whiny, and besides, his brother would need more prods than the normal Hunter's Life could give to get straight on the Path. No time to die miserably.

Nra'tex-ne stood up, again ignored his leg and went to the nearest corpse. Karga'te handed him a blade, and the older yautja ate his fill. The other three took a kill of their own to feed on.

"I will go to meet the clan. I want you three to stay here and protect our allies," Nra'tex-ne said once he was done.

Karga'te jerked up.

"Don't be crazy, I'm coming along!"

"Honor will be my best shield. Brother, no offense but your sharp tongue might just make things worse," Nra'tex-ne said. The unsaid, Karga'te's bloodline wasn't all that pure either, he needed Meidache at his side instead.

Karga'te snarled something incomprehensible, but said no more.

A message appeared on the gauntlet, a rough translation of what the human named Mahad said.

Apparently, Jor would be able to help figure out what really happened with the conflict, if he were to be attached to the ship.  
Nra'tex-ne typed in a quick response. Help was welcome still, if Jor would give it.

He wasn't sure what to think of this Jor, or Zib, neither of which he had gotten to see yet. Apparently, the latter was too young to wander around unsupervised without raising attention, but he couldn't figure out what the deal with the latter was. There had been no suitable translation found for the word they called this one, yet.

A similar question was, what to think of the help these humans offered without asking anything in return? Maybe they were knowledge seekers after all, as the rumors said. They sure seemed to think Spirit Speech was entirely normal. Kinda made him wonder how much existed that he didn't even know he didn't understand.

Life hadn't always been so bloody complicated. Wise hunters would say complication could enrich how one wandered the Path, but right now, he just found the Path to be a bit muddy. The sort of mud that slips between your toes and throws you off the road when you're wearing the wrong boots.

Mahad approached him with some sort of device that he had prepared, and Nra'tex-ne allowed it to be installed on his gauntlet.

The three younglings were instructed to accompany the humans, but not to enter their house. Rather, stay close enough to ensure their survival, but not close enough to possibly betray them. He still expected the enemy clan to be around. Ghuran wanted to know why they still needed the humans, which earned him an elbow in the stomach by Ohtremnek; they might still need the humans and at least they needed to be kept out of the wrong hands, since they had so much knowledge now.

Nra'tex-ne wasn't all that comfortable with the idea of leaving their hosts to these three, but nothing could be done about it. He tried explaining their purpose to the matriarch Bakarne, and wished her a farewell. She seemed to understand.

Then he departed quickly. It was evening now, much colder to him and his need for tropical heat. Along the way, it proved his leg injury was still acting up. But again, he bit through it.

A brief pause did make him aware of something : his brother had never actually said he agreed with staying behind, did he? He paid a little more attention, and sure enough. There he was.

Once Karga'te realized he had been spotted, he emerged before Nra'tex-ne.

"Kea'chethi is out there too, I'm coming along and will divert her if necessary," Karga'te said in that you-can't-stop-me tone.

Nra'tex-ne sighed and said, "Well then, brother, I rely on you for cover, if it turns out to be needed. Pray that it won't."

**· · · · · · ·**


	11. Snake Games

**· · · · · · ·**

It was an impulsive decision, that was why it worked. Oihana had gone down to that reservoir, probably to seek some quiet from the tension. She had not had enough time before Carly had blocked the only exit way.

The woman played with the gun she had snatched from Bakarne's hiding space. It wasn't really stealing, as far as Carly was concerned, considering where the gun came from.

The girl slowly walked up to her and Carly wondered again just how much the kid could read minds. Emotions and thoughts factored into each other, but this was something in a realm that had never been relevant to Carly. Well, she'd have to see how much she'd have to explain, and how much use the kid's powers were. Total mind control was out of the question, or else Carly would not be here.

Oihana stopped a few meters before her. "What do you want?"

"We're going to follow that hunter," Carly said. "Something is fishy about this whole deal."

"You're suspicious of everything."

"Was that supposed to be an valid point? Tsss. I'm suspicious because I live in a city that bloody well demands it. Now move it!" She pointed the gun up the path.

The girl didn't seem _too_ scared, might just sense Carly wasn't going to kill her. Huh, what horrible judgment. She had no way to be sure something other than a bullet to a vital organ was going to occur.

As they left the caves, Carly quickly looked around. Bakarne must have noticed this already, but she was still only a human. Carly had already pinpointed a car she wanted to use, so she took Oihana by the arm and dragged her down the hills by a detour that avoided the house.

It was quite an old model, like most things in this city, so she knew how to hijack it. It was a bit trickier than usual though, since the kid tried running away in every unguarded moment till Carly tied her legs with one of her strangle wires. The good thing about those was that they'd sooner cut her fingers than loosen up, so running was over.

Once the alarm was wrecked, the kid on the other front seat and a few kicks to the engine delivered, the thing finally moved.

It would take a few hours before her gang would learn a car had been stolen by someone who was not acting on anyone's orders. Maybe longer depending on whom was stationed at the police, or perhaps sooner if Jormungandr figured out she was getting in the way of his plans. So far though it had no reason to suspect anything, given her destination. For all that was happening, it might think she just be needed Oihana for something involving her gang.

Oihana didn't say anything, was smart enough not to mess with the wires and only trembled a little. Now she thought about it, she did owe this kid her life and she had to wonder how much mother and daughter were alike, or _not_ alike. That was probably going to matter soon.

Carly drove down town and checked out four locations before she found Jarrod. Sadly, he was in company. They were down in an abandoned building, Jarrod half high on something and laughing loudly with his mates as if he was _totally not_ hiding her living outlaw-outlaw. Well, too bad for his wonderful hiding efforts, she needed to interrupt.

The most tactful thing to do, given the time limit they were on, was to just walk in.

"Hi guys, remember me?"

Six surprised faced turned around and she emptied the gun on five of them. Assholes deserved it. What she wouldn't give for a gang that did a little more on loyalty and trust.

Jarrod looked horrified through his drug induced stupor, finding four cringing buddies and one possibly dead.

"Jarrod, I need weapons."

"Carly? What're you ... here?"

"It's an emergency. Weapons, now."

"Wha?"

Rolling her eyes, Carly grabbed Jarrod's arm and dragged out the staggering man.

If Jormungandr had any eyes inside here, he would know now. Didn't matter. He had no physical body, after all.

By the time Carly shoved Jarrod into the car, he was starting to regain some lucidity and blurted out, "What do you mean, emergency? And what's she doing here ... good lord, did you tie the kid up with strangle wire?"

"Her mom's the enemy, but I need her for this. She wasn't cooperative."

"Mother is not—" Carly whacked her on the head with the flat of her hand.

"Kid, did you ever consider that you might not noticed lies from a skilled telepath, especially when those lies serve her mommy instincts that you're used to feeling?"

Jarrod jumped up and bumped his head against the car ceiling. "Hold it, Carly, what the hell are you saying? That that woman's in league with the feds?" he groaned, clutching his head.

"Pffffft, don't be stupid. No, I mean Jormungandr. Remember the conversation you had with her?" She kicked the car a few more times and it restarted.

"My first clue the way she said that she doesn't want those things _in her place_ , cause they are so violent. Any normal, concerned mother would say she doesn't want her child or any of the other kids interacting with those things _before_ worrying about where they'll stay."

"Maybe we just didn't see that part," Jarrod said.

"I checked their phone line. Lady never phoned any parents to persuade them to keep their children at home. Didn't email them either. In fact, her lack of computer use is very suspicious, considering she needs a computer to arrange at least _some_ things in her house, like the fridge and the television."

"Jormungandr wouldn't let her get in the way of his friends' pet project. And who knows, maybe she's just a technophobe."

"Exactly. She doesn't like technology at all. She goes outside to be alone, despite the fact her telepathy never lets her be alone ... so why was she going outside, Jarrod, out into the wild where only the house had no eyes? She knew exactly what to expect of the hunters and that they were no threat to the children."

"Carly, listen to yourself! You're sounding crazier than some of the guys I just spoke to and they were on illegal drugs! Heck, _I_ am on illegal drugs, what do you want fro— Oh, I might be hallucinating. Carly, if I'm responding to things you did not say, it's the drugs ... shit ... Carly isn't here, is she?"

"Just get me some weapons and come along. We've got killing to do."

"Weapons, right. Weapons. What for?"

"You know that jerk that nearly killed me? We're going to save his sorry ass from the stupidity he unwittingly stumbled into," Carly said through gritted teeth. "Directions, Jarrod."

"Right, go to Espven street, I think you can handle the guard if you've got some wires and ...wait, what? We're saving who?"

"The jerk from outer space. Oihana, find out where Tex is."

She didn't look aside, but she could hear sniffing and saw shaking from the corner of her eyes.

"Oihana? You helped save my life, so if you did that for any reasons other than curiosity, you're going to help us save that alien."

"Mother's talking to me," the girl said. "She tells me not to believe anything you say."

Carly groaned. "Look, your mother is just trying to keep you out of trouble."

"I know."

"What?"

"There's been a man at our door and he warned us. Andrew, about a year ago. She also told me to not believe anything he said." The girl's shoulders started to shake harder and with some difficulty she pulled up her legs, hiding her face in her knees. "Why does she keep telling me to not believe people without telling me why? She always knows everything that people think, I can feel she does, but she won't tell me what!"

Jarrod leaned forward, laying a hand on her back with some disorientation. "Hey, kid, are you okay? Carly, get those things off of her legs, they're cutting her."

"I'm driving, Jarrod. Give her one of your knives. I think she understands."

Jarrod hesitated, but then handed the girl a knife. She clutched it with both hands, but didn't cut yet.

"If you act on your impulses, I will guide you. I can't aim for you, but I _can_ time," Oihana said with a strange new voice.

Carly smirked. How cute, she still thought there could be heroes in this story. This might just be useful.

**· · · · · · ·**

Nra'tex-ne had chosen one of the numerous empty ruins to wait in, having left a fair trail of scent and other cues. He had a good guess of how Kea'chethi explored so she ought to find him first, if any were still looking for him.

When his set of quickly carved wooden blocks dropped down before him, he stood up and calmly peered around. Kea'chethi manifested in a window, one level up with no floor between them. He was shocked to see how decimated she appeared, with claw scratches on her arms and legs. Just what was going on at the ship?

"Nra'tex-ne, you have a lot of nerve coming out now," she said with a voice too raspy.

He knelt down and bowed his head.

"I am aware that I have broken the protocol, however, I have succeeded at finding us a food source. Water too is freely available. The humans here are willing to help us."

She made a scoffing sound, but he wasn't executed yet. "So for what price would your humans help us, Tex? They never act out of honor."

"The humans are children, their curiosity drives them. It is not them that we would pay, but an entity named Jormungandr, who is an enemy of the humans who control this city."

She clattered her mandibles and made a gesture for him to continue. He wished he could see her expression.

"I was not to tell the humans the price as not to worry them. Jormungandr knows we will destroy this area once we are ready to depart, so he wants us take along his human friends while he himself escapes through cyberspace. In return, we will receive food, water and any knowledge that he can provide us."

"Tex, we have begun hunting humans for food," she said, perhaps somewhat regretfully.

"What? But what about the protocol?"

"The matriarchs say, this is no hunt of honor, just a collecting of nutrition."

"What are we, _Hish_?" Nra'tex-ne barked, forgetting his humility.

"As long as we are not seen, it should not matter. The Hunt is for later."

"We have already been seen by Jormungandr! He could reveal us all, but he could also help us. He might even be able to find out what happened aboard our ship, give evidence for the arbiters that the other clan attacked first."

Kea'chethi perked up. "The other clan thinks that we attacked first? How would you know?"

He realized his mistake. This would be the worst time to admit of the murders that had occurred ... he despised lying, but perhaps another truth would suffice, even if it was misleading.

"Two of the humans have the eyes of the gods."

She made a curious sound and said, "Maybe I would bring you home alive, if it was up to me."

His hopes peaked, but sank right away when he realized what this meant. Kea'chethi stood up and turned around, looking at something in the distance. Other hunters, if Nra'tex-ne guessed correctly.

"Kea, please, listen —"

"As if our Matriarchs would listen to something like an artificial creature," she said. "Give up and die with what last dignity you have. Begging never suited a true Yautja."

Two other hunters appeared.

"What takes you so long?" one of them demanded.

Kea'chethi leaned against the crumbling window. "Curiosity," she said simply. "Have you found a place to dispose of the body?"

"There is a canyon near the edge of the city. It should do the trick until we are ready to leave."

Death without dignity. Nra'tex-ne raised his hands and laid down the mask aside of him. Kea'chethi was curious, perhaps it would get the best of her and she'd access his mask. Even if he had disgraced his clan, he still wanted the best for them.

The other two hunters, neither of whom he recognized, dropped down to his floor and chattered together about the least messy way to kill him. They'd expected a fight so they had not considered they might have a choice. Nra'tex-ne almost suggested them a way, but noticed he wasn't that masochistic.

When faced with imminent death, the code of honor suddenly seemed less strong, almost disposable. If he was doomed anyway, then ... no, no _no_! He was going to stay right here and do this the right way, so he could at least face his ancestors and the Black Warrior with a shred of dignity.

Kea'chethi suddenly cloaked and jumped down. Part of the window edge shattered where she had stood.

"Two humans are coming," she told the others. "I'll finish him off, you'll deal with them."

They scattered. Kea'chethi jumped down and extended her spear. She was about to strike Nra'tex-ne when that blasted survival instinct kicked in after all. Forgetting all about honor, Nra'tex-ne grabbed the spread, jerked it out of her hands and twisted it around to wield as his own weapon.

Neither were in a shape well enough to be at their best, and they did not get a chance to test. A shot rang, Kea'chethi's arm was bleeding and there was Carly emerging from a broken door. How had she gotten in here without being detected?

Kea'chethi howled, took unusually long to spot her attacker, charged, and was shot at again with uncanny accuracy. Kea'chethi fired her plasma cannon at her, but Carly was already ducked at the moment it was fired.

Was this the same person he had hunted? Carly had been skilled, but now she could eerily avoid being hit even at such a close range, despite having less cover than before, and Kea was unusually slow.

"Tex, move it!" That phrase he knew by now. Without hesitation, weirdly enough, he followed her. Carly shot by him and grabbed his helmet. She wouldn't hand it back though, and somehow he didn't feel like asking. Had to survive first.

Carly led him down a particular road as if she knew this ruin by memory, yet made some completely random turns and apparently needless tours around. He didn't feel like questioning them, an by some bizarre stroke of luck they didn't run into any of the other hunters.

Along the way they met Jarrod, and outside in a rusted car was Oihana, hunched on the front seat and entirely unresponsive.

It wasn't until they were halfway back to the Eir residence that he felt like thinking about why in the universe he had stopped caring for the Path. His sense of honor was back now and not happy.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Welcome to the rebel base!" Carly shouted when the other geeks exited the cave that led down to the basin, following Oihana. The three teenage hunters were closing the trail, the other two having joined Karga'te some time outside.

Oihana went sit next to Ohtremnec, at the center of the shore. Her mother came last and looked carefully stoic. It unsettled her, that this woman might really be able to dig though her mind and figure out everything.

"What's going on? Why is he back?" Melanie demanded, then she spotted Jarrod. "And what's he doing here?"

"Oh, not much, we just saved your monster from execution," Carly said.

"What? Why?" Mahad asked. He looked around suspiciously, then questioningly at Oihana, but the girl only stared into the water.

"Turns out that despite Jor's lovely skill to mess with perception technology, two other hunters were with Kea'chethi, very much _not_ lost and disoriented."

"So what? Jormungandr isn't a god, he can't control anything," Mahad objected. "Will you finally explain what's going on here?" He turned around to Bakarne, who had her arms crossed and looked down at the group, still at the cave entrance.

"She won't talk, so I will," Carly said. "It took Jormungandr _just five days_ to decipher their language. Face it, it already knew where to start. Maybe it wasn't even translating, he was adapting a virus or something." Carly tapped Nra'tex-ne's helmet, the owner of which was giving her increasingly puzzled looks. She noticed Ohtremnec messing with his keypad, doubtlessly wondering why Jor wasn't translating anything anymore.

"Mahad, open your laptop and check in on Jormungandr, will you?"

"He hasn't answered for half an hour now. What did you do?"

"Well, I like the monster a little better than that cybersnake, cause at least the monster has _some_ respect for life. What I did was get in the snake's way by helping the monster."

"What on earth is wrong with you, why would you antagonize Jor? You don't even have evidence Jor didn't try to keep him alive!" Mahad nearly howled. So immature.

"If all I did was antagonize Jor, why did it stop talking to you?"

No answer.

"Playing the cute geeky kids up against the corrupt government, eh? Get a check on reality. The government can be pretty screwed up, but today they're right. Jormungandr _is_ a threat." While saying this, she looked up sharply at Bakarne.

"You knew, didn't you? You're the telepath here. You must've gotten some type of vision or whatever you call it."

"I had no visions, but I have spoken to Jormungandr."

Now Mahad, Frank and Melanie all turned around, looking at her in horror. The woman pinched the bridge of her nose, then walked into the open space and knelt down aside of her child. Oihana looked at her with doubtful eyes, and the mother sighed and stood up.

"Carly is right, Jormungandr has not told you everything. The hunter was meant to die, he served his purpose. They would never trust him to mess with the technology when alive and imprisoned for treachery, but if dead, they'd hook up the helmet to see what he did. However, Carly does not know everything either."

Frank fell back, slumping down onto a pipe and Mahad's mouth dropped. Melanie only stared with wide eyes.

"The Ash Generation are Jormungandr's work. I don't know what it is trying to breed, but it is very protective of the project, which is the reason it got caught in this backwater city rather than escape when it had the chance. That was decades ago. At this point in time, I am the only biological human in this city," Bakarne said.

"What? No, no no no, this is ridiculous. Why would Jor do this? If he was so dangerous, he could just blow up the city!" Frank yelped.

Mahad took the frightened young man by the shoulders, forcing him to stay calm. Then he turned to Bakarne, frowning, and said, "If this is true, then why are you the only human? I don't understand."

"Jormungandr ensures that anyone who settles here dies soon enough to avoid polluting the gene pool. I was spared for my powers. Before the Ash Generation, there was the Heron Generation. Next comes the Phoenix Generation. I don't know what this means, but I know something is not going according to plan. I suspect this has to do with the former _geek squads_. All of them were highly gifted children with poor friend and family ties, deluded into service of the serpent. Some of them have survived and now work against Jormungandr."

"What about the crashing alien ship?"

"Jormungandr cannot download itself without sufficient time and enough space at the other end, but it can hack from the distance using the city's radio towers, something like that. It knew there was something to hack because I told him a few interesting things. The primitive tribe, there were several of them who would consider contacting the humans for help. If none of them would have tried, then Jormungandr simply would have one of the hunters killed and invent some excuse for us to help translate and install the data it needed, then get the body and technology taken to the ship. If all other plans failed, the final resort would see me trying to mind control a captured hunter."

Ah, so that was why her daughter was so quick to realize the truth when forced to think about it. Bakarne most likely had done something to prevent her from brainstorming suspicious little things. Bakarne loved her daughter and had most likely been nice to her. Wonder what she could do to someone she didn't like?

This did affirm she had a limit to her psychic powers though, otherwise she could have just done Plan Last Resort right away.

"You'll find out how much I can do soon, Carly. The contract I have with Jormungandr is not yet lost. Quite a few things have already gone awry, I am certain it will cope. It has no emotions, no grudges, just a practical interface."

"Great. Now that we've established we're all marionettes, what are we going to do?" Mahad said.

**· · · · · · ·**


	12. Thought Traces

**· · · · · · ·**

"I told you already, we have one plan left. I will mind control a yautja who will bring aboard an anchor for Jormungandr. We will follow," Bakarne said evenly.

"Y-you can mind control ...?" Frank stuttered.

Mahad sighed, tightening his hand on Frank's shoulder. "Bakarne, just how much have you been involved in this ... project of Jormungandr?"

"There have been people who were curious how people survived so well in this climate when many visitors fell ill, random visitors who noticed the city has eyes everywhere and once a government employee trying to figure out how this city finances itself. IfJormungandr failed to divert them, I would silence their curiosity or plant different ideas in their heads," Bakarne said to Mahad, then she turned to Frank. "In that extend, yes, I can somewhat control minds. I had plenty of chance to practice. However, _you_ are thinking of body control. That I cannot do."

"Why not? What's the difference?" Jarrod asked. "From what I noticed today, your daughter can implant or subdue emotions."

"Psychic powers or not, we still have a limited human brain. There's only so much information we can handle before we crash. That's why I can't just long distance hijack their matriarch and make her decide random things, none the least because an implanted idea doesn't need to be followed on. Controlling their body and forcing them to do anything is out of the question ... mind control is a complex matter of negotiating with and deceiving the subconscious."

Mahad said, "I'm guessing Jormungandr wants us to go with them because it will need further help. So we're not yet indispensable to it. What happens if we choose to stay? It can't force us, right?"

Bakarne gave a fake smile and said, "The clan in orbit considers blowing up this city to preserve secrecy. The other clan will probably do the same once they leave."

Well, that was that. Carly hadn't had any clear plans for the future, but she had had a general idea of "I wanna get out of this hellhole". Assuming Jormungandr wasn't dead set on excluding anyone it did not need, she'd be getting to a worse hellhole instead.

Jarrod walked in, she saw him open his mouth to ask something. Carly pulled him aside and briefed him in, just when Bakarne apparently contacted Jarrod in her way, judging by the glazed expression he got. It only lasted shortly, then he said, "Wow ... so ... we're getting an albino ... Assume you can in fact program her, what's going to stop them from just taking the location of the crocodiles and not bother with us?"

"I'm hoping their honor will," Bakarne said.

"And why would Jor care for us? It's got no honor."

"It has no hands either. He'll need someone to help him aboard the yautja vessel."

"But we don't know anything about alien technology!" Melanie said. "Does he expect us to hack it? We can't do miracles. Can you?"

"I can get you the information, though I won't understand it myself. But you're all bred to be highly intelligent in some field or another. For today, you just need to open a gate for him, you'll figure it out. Besides, out there most people aren't as smart as here, alien or not. Hell, I still don't even understand what these _access control rights_ are that Jormungandr needs."

"They keep Jormungandr from interacting with certain things. If it's true what you say and our predecessors are working against him, they would have refined those amongst other things. However, if he downloads himself to anything that doesn't have a digital wall specifically to stop him, he could just claim these rights," Mahad said.

Carly spat on the ground. "Right, technobabble done now, I hope. We're supposed to go along on that ship as what exactly?"

"They'll call it servitude, but it will be slavery. That, or choose to die," Bakarne said coldly.

Melanie took a step closer, looking Bakarne in the eyes defiantly. "Tell us, how dangerous is Jormungandr? If we help him escape, what will he do to the world?"

"I don't know about the future, I can only tell the present."

"And the past?"

There was that fake smile again. "Jormungandr is likely an offshoot of the A.I. virus that deleted humanity's history. You know the event called the Big Deletion. People died by the millions due to disabled life support and transport. Entire colonies were wiped out. So many died, so much information was destroyed that earth forgot it was once conquered by the xenomorph. Only the A.I. remembered and that is why it had so much interesting things to entice you with."

"And we're letting it loose," Melanie said sharply.

"We're not letting it loose anywhere it can do much," Bakarne said easily. "And you'll be there, knowing it. You still have a chance to stop it and live."

A pregnant silence fell. Carly looked across all humans present, trying to guess what they were thinking. All of them just kids, she doubted anyone was going to be truly honest with themselves. The yautja also looked brooding, though that was likely for entirely different reasons.

"I think it's time to face that none of us are the goodguys. Well, maybe this sucker here, according to _his own_ culture," Carly said with a thumb pointed at Tex. "But I'm for life, count me in, Bakarne."

Mahad rubbed his forehead. "I ... I think I'll go with the hunters."

One by one, the remaining humans agreed. Jarrod spoke last and Oihana said nothing, didn't have to.

"Alright. I will speak to Jormungandr. Carly and Jarrod, ..." she paused as she seemed to ponder his mental state. "Jarrod, I will hand you something to drink and you will take it. Carly, you can drive a car? Good. Accompany those three when they go capture another."

"I hope that means I'm invited," she said, then turned to go back up the tunnel. When she looked over her shoulder to see whether Jarrod followed, she saw Oihana finally move again. The child tugged her mother's sleeve. Just barely, Carly heard her whisper, "Mom ... what am I?"

Bakarne had delivered the entire rant on an indifferent tone, never hesitating. This didn't change. "You're a different version of me. A clone so to speak, as far as genes are concerned. Except Jormungandr added a little of its brew."

**· · · · · · ·**

They were going to abduct Kea'chethi. Sure, why not?

That freaky system would help them. The entire city was full of neglected devices that could disrupt magnetic fields and electronics, even mess with the temperature through machinery hidden in buildings and street lights. This place was awesome, as far as Karga'te was concerned.

It did feel somewhat wrong that they were hunting a female of their own species and it felt _very_ wrong that he was hunting Kea'chethi. She wouldn't like this at all, yet somehow he didn't care that much right now.

He fell back, wondering about that. Ohtremnek first noticed his absence and called for Ghuran to slow down.

"What's wrong?" his friend asked.

He wasn't sure. Nah, nothing felt wrong. Rather, it felt like he should get excited for the fight ... wait, that was wrong. Why wasn't he excited? He didn't want to fight Kea'chethi, that much he knew.

"Karga'te, move it!" Ghuran roared.

Right, they were going. The system had a spot prepared where it noticed the hunters enter the city ... why was he thinking of the rest as 'the hunters'?

This area was not abandoned, rather some sort of industrial place. He didn't care to find out what was made here, but Ohtremnek off course had to stick his mandibles right in and crawled into one of the buildings. As they waited for him to return, two yautja entered the city from down the mountain. One of them returned shortly, carrying a net with a corpse in it on his back. They didn't appear to have a clue they were being watched.

Karga'te felt queasy at the sight, the one thing that didn't make him wonder about whether the feeling was right. Hunting humans was one thing, eating them another. They just looked too alike, he couldn't imagine chewing on a hand or rib bone that was shaped like his own. If this wasn't going to work out and he was brought back to the ship for judgment, then he hoped his last meal was going to be a more anonymous chunk of meat. Judging by Nra'tex-ne's expression when he'd spoken of Kea's words, his brother would decline it entirely.

Ohtremnek wasn't back yet when Jor alerted them to stand by, the sun already above the horizon. Kea'chethi appeared on a roof three buildings away. Zooming in, he noticed she looked dreadful. No doubt had one of the stronger females used her to vent, as they always did. Kea was small for a yautja female, barely a head taller than Karga'te himself. The three of them might have a chance to subdue her, especially when she was in this state. Preferably without making it worse for her.

"Guys, we're going to do this _not_ in matriarch style, got it?" he snarled. Ghuran had to laugh and got a punch on the shoulder by Karga'te.

"I think we've got the advantage here. We should get her to the car without much damage. Don't worry, Karga'te," Ohtremnek said while rejoining them. He carried some weird things in a bag he'd snatched from somewhere. Typical.

"Since when can you speak for Ghuran?"

Ohtremnek sounded like he swallowed his words, and Ghuran gave a whining growl, but didn't argue. Strangely enough.

Kea moved quickly through the industrial area and they followed, shielded by Jor. The system couldn't prevent it when any factory workers saw them, even if it just was an outline. According to it, there was a significant increase in missing humans in the city and the slightest thing could set off problems. They'd approach her once she was somewhere more isolated.

Fortunately, Kea didn't appear to be out to get a new body. She made her way to the tunnel where earlier she had marked Melanie.

"Shit, is she trying to track us?" Ghuran asked.

"I doubt it. If she suspects something, ... " Karga'te trailed off. It was strange she'd be going there today, right when it was convenient. All this insubstantial weirdness was piling up in the back of his mind. In the front of it, he only paid attention to Kea and had some blasphemous thoughts about what he'd like to do to certain elders. Twice, he looked over his shoulder to see whether Carly still followed in that infernal car. She'd obtained a 'van' somewhere, meaning a car with a big storage compartment in the back. If Kea came close enough to the tunnel, they wouldn't need that.

Kea had marked Melanie earlier, but he doubted she'd reported the incident since he'd removed the spore so soon. Nobody liked to report a failure. Perhaps she was trying to find a trace anyway, or maybe she just wanted to get an excuse to get out of the ship.

She didn't go into the tunnel, but Jor let them know she was far enough from mundane eyes, though it was best if they stayed cloaked. As they moved in, Jor jammed her far distance signal and scrambled what it could affect directly in her helmet. She stopped, irritably clattering her mandibles. When she took off her helmet, he and the others started closing in.

Kea had always been a sharp listener, so she heard them well ahead. Discarding the helmet, she released her wrist blades and growled at them. Ohtremnek and Ghuran flanked out, trying to surround her while Karga'te continued right towards her.

"I knew you had no faith in the Path, but I never thought you'd fall," she snarled at him.

"Can't fall from what I never really was on," he said. "My brother wasn't done talking with you."

"Oh, and you're going to make me? Try!" Everything about her stance and scent told them there would be a fight, and he would have attacked already if not for her pitiable state. The more Karga'te looked at her, the more he disliked the idea. She'd definitely gotten a beating, it was a good guess for her failure at retrieving his brother. Maybe he could try something else.

"You need your wounds treated and you need to eat. We can get both of that done if you just come along," Ohtremnek said.

In the moment she turned her head to him, Karga'te fired his net. She noticed and dodged, but wasn't quickly enough. He hadn't expected to trap her, but she was a little closer to the tunnel now. Jor said this would take too long, he ignored it. Through his helmet, he signaled Ghuran and Ohtremnek what his plan was.

Making a dash forward, she stood her ground, but he merely grabbed the net and backed off. Behind her, Ohtremnek feigned attack and she turned, only for him to withdraw. This continued for a while, each taking turns as she readjusted her position.

She noticed quickly enough they were herding her. Ghuran was closest by her when she made a dash, he barely dodged the blades coming at his throat as she tried to bypass him. If not for the rings around his neck deflecting them that last inch, he would have been injured. Now, he merely lost some tresses.

Slow by malnutrition, she wasn't quick enough to recompose and he managed to trip her, then grabbed her by the tresses and pulled her back up, pushing her in the direction of the tunnel again. She misstepped, lost had balance for the crucial second it took for Karga'te to shoot his net again, this time catching her underneath it. He shot Ghuran a dangerous glare over the rough treatment, but his friend just shrugged it off.

Kneeling down aside of the trapped Kea'chethi, who was well on her way to tearing the net out of the rocky ground, he laid a hand on her shoulder. She hissed at him, but he held her down with a little bit of added weight, carefully to avoid a gash on her neck.

"You need treatment and you will get it," he said with a purr. "Whether the matriarchs or the Code say you should accept it or not."

She released a wordless snarl. Karga'te was used to it and just pushed her down a little harder. She kicked one piece of rubble away and the net came loose partially, but he stayed put.

"Listen to me," he said with an edge. From this position, he could see one eye glare up at him, narrowing.

"Nra'tex-ne was spouting nonsense about human allies. Maybe he has an infection and is delirious, and now you're mad too. Why should I believe you just like that?"

"He is not," Ohtremnek said. "There _are_ humans here who were willing to form a truce, and they have given us the location of a food source and the promise of more technical help. Do we act delirious?"

Kea'chethi scoffed. "That would be unusually honorable of humans, but it doesn't excuse your defiance of the orders. You betrayed us." She spoke that last specifically to Karga'te. It hurt far more than he felt anything else ... where was everything else?

"There was nothing to betray," Karga'te said tensely. "They already knew about us, that is exactly how they ran into Nra'tex-ne in the first place."

She still looked at him suspiciously, but said nothing more. He wondered whether the spirit speaker was already talking to her or not, she wasn't as feisty as he had expected.

"They are not like the other humans, they have a sense of honor and maybe even the guidance of the gods. There is a spirit speaker amongst them. I believe the gods have set this all up because they do not want our clan to perish in such a disgraceful way," Ohtremnek added slowly. Karga'te guessed he was trying to to solemn and spiritual.

She grumbled a bit to herself, but then asked, "Where is he?"

"We go down this tunnel," Ghuran said, obviously tired with the talking. "The humans are there too."

Oh, now she had to ask why and call out the coincidence of her being here ... why didn't she?

Karga'te lingered as Kea'chethi struggled against the net, trying to figure out what wasn't right. Everything felt like a dollsplay by children.

Carly came running up, snapping him back to his senses.

"No car needed, I guessing," she supposedly said as she slowed down.

He ignored her and helped Kea'chethi stand up, pulling back the net. She shook off his arm and went down the tunnel. Ohtremnek and Ghuran stayed to the left and right of her, while Karga'te retrieved Kea's helmet — really unlike her to forget it — and followed her.

Carly followed them at a jog and spoke again. The translation appeared in his helmet again, something like, "Wow, look at those wounds. You really into abusing own kind, no?"

"I'm not!"

"I think that translated wrong. Your people appear to hurt their own easily."

He relaxed, realizing that this was something he actually agreed with. "Oh, yes. Most of them do. We're all bastards."

For what little time Karga'te had spent in the humans' presence, there was a notable lack of shoving, grabbing, threatening and clawing. They barely touched at all, let alone were they rough with smaller ones. There certainly was less injury, and his thoughts were back at Kea'chethi again. What had the spirit speakers said that had convinced her to go along so peacefully?

The group descended into the subterranean halls, back to the reservoir. Not once did Kea'chethi try to escape or question.

Nra'tex-ne waited in the circle of humans. Almost like they were his students back at home, listening to one of his boring spiritual theories. Kea easily walked into the circle, curiously looking at the humans and then at Nra'tex-ne. His brother just had to go and be all apologetic. Typical.

Lowering on his knees before her, Nra'tex-ne said, "Forgive us for forcing you to come here, but please think about what I have to say. Should we die, how will we ever prove to the homeworld that we are not the rebels they fear? If we die here, the other clan will be free to tell the elders what they want. Count on them going after our home and everyone who lives there.

At this point Bakarne stepped forward, bowed her head briefly and he saw Kea's eyes widen. The conversation continued in the eerie silence of spirit speech. He kept a close eye on Kea who wasn't just silent, she moved too little, secreted too little musk. Most she did was tilt her head to the side. _Atypical_.

Kea was more tolerant than other females, but when injured she would be just as ferocious. This wasn't her. She'd been herself half early on. Now she sat down, probably on invitation, and let herself be treated by the humans while the talking continued. When she took the food without even running some scans with her wrist computer, he was downright suspicious. She was too calm.

Too calm ... like he had been earlier when he was supposed to be defending his brother. During that failed attempt where he had nearly died, he'd only met up with them after they were out. Carly been surprised at his belated appearance, right when they were trying to figure out whether the car roof could hold his brother. She'd said something to the spirit speaker, who hadn't vocally responded, but Carly had to her witchcraft. He had a recording of this, and right now he was rather curious ...

Mahad was at the sidelines, sitting on the stairs of a bridge, typing on his laptop. When Karga'te suddenly stood before him, he startled, but quickly regain composure.

Karga'te told him to translated and replayed his recording : _"Good thing you two kept him back. Would have been too complicated, Tex is still slow with that leg."_

Mahad obediently translated it, then suddenly smelled nervous. "That means—"

He shut off his helmet's power and turned away with a deep growl.

Well, wasn't it _convenient_ that he hadn't felt like going in to help his brother, not even when he had seen two others were there? He'd thought about going round the building, and there he suddenly felt like stopping in a particular spot, and right then one of the other yautja had come out of the building at a vulnerable angle. He'd charged and handicapped him, very conveniently so the other had to stay back and help the injured.

He looked at his three companions. They all were calm. Neither their faces nor their musk betrayed anything of stress or worry. In fact, they betrayed way too less. While his brother usually was calm, Ohtremnek tended to be anxious when left without something to occupy his mind and Ghuran was not a fan of lengthy talk.

He himself should be angry and every second felt like the start of anger, over and over again, but the actual anger only unfolded slowly. Here he discovered it was on a purely mental level entirely possible to be upset about something even if he didn't feel it.

Bakarne was applying a bandage, her child curled up against a wall and deceptively doing nothing. _They_ were doing this.

If they spoke to the spirit, ... and his own spirit couldn't speak back in a way he noticed, just how would he knew what else they could do?

He shook Ohtremnek's shoulder.

"Do you notice something wrong?"

"Notice what?"

"Ohtremnek, it's not _right_ ," Karga'te muttered under his breath. "This isn't like Kea'chethi and we aren't like us."

"I feel kinda lazy, yeah. Must be the air and malnutrition. Not enough energy for it. I wish we could take these humans along, I'm not done asking questions. I wonder whether they can eat our stuff."

That change of topic was intensely disjointed coming from Ohtremnek. If he hadn't already been certain something was wrong, he was now.

"I mean we're being manipulated."

Ohtremnek yawned. "I think the spirit speakers are giving us balance. Fine with me."

Karga'te felt the need to smash something manifest and it was stronger than before. Like there was less of the invisible resistance.

"Fine? They have no business messing with our minds!"

**· · · · · · ·**

Oihana tightened her small arms around her legs and hid her face, though it couldn't protect her. This was the closest she'd been to a yautja who was so aware of her and thought of her as a threat. Karga'te had an aversion to the idea of killing a child, but he'd wouldn't mind hurting her if he thought that would help his brother or his friends. Her mother he'd have no trouble with at all, he was quickly identifying her as power hungry matriarch, something he loathed.

"~ Mom, it's dangerous. She's one of his friends, he doesn't like it when people mess with his friends,~" she thought as deliberately as she could.

"~ Don't worry, I'm not catching any plans go get violent from him and I have her under control," Bakarne said. "~ It's shaky though. I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to do it if they hadn't brought her here and forced her to pay attention to me. ~"

The others stood closer by the new yautja and were blissfully unaware that Karga'te was on a dangerous edge. Frank was slowly getting over his anxiety and had started speculating with Mahad about her paleness and the soft green glow around Kea. It was more of a diversion than true calmness though.

"Albinism or at least melanism," Mahad said. "Might that have anything to do with the small size?"

"Looks more like stunted growth. That shouldn't be related to her melanin levels, but maybe it works differently for them? Hey, notice the eyes? Eyewhites, like the others. Wonder why only Ghuran has different eyes?"

"Must be a racial thing. Otter's the only one with mottles. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough."

Mahad might just be the only with some positive expectations, Oihana realized. She hoped he wouldn't be disappointed, because there was a scarcity of nice emotions to take comfort in.

Jarrod had taken her mother's brewing and was again coming down from their house, complaining about stairs all the way. He stopped halfway the side of the basin and stared at Kea'chethi. Specifically, a little down her head at the noticeable bulges under her top.

"Dude ... they're mammals. Why are they mammals?" Jarrod said. "Or I am I still high?"

"It appears so," Mahad said, looked steadfastly at the ground. "Not impossible that mammals developed elsewhere ... but unlikely. Especially given how rare external mammary glands are even on earth."

"I don't get it ... hate me for saying it, but if you discount their faces and size, they look ... not that unlike humans." He shuddered.

"What's the problem, Jarrod? Got xenophilia?"

"Shut it, Carly. I'm more worried about what's going to happen when we run into any of these giants while they're having their period."

He was right, that would be a problem, as her mother told her without reservation. Yautja were a violent society, and had the physique to deal with it. Humans less so, though there were fortunately almost no humans here. Her mother's callousness started to frighten her.

Kea was eating now, almost feeling happy like a child at the prospect of everything turning out alright. This was less her doing than her mother's, who perhaps had a slower control of emotions, but a sharper array of thoughts to place in minds. With her attention no longer on Karga'te and the others, Kea was there to be molded.

"Speaking of leaving," Mahad said, "We all need to get ready. Pack stuff ... get family members. I might be able to talk my sister into coming along, Ayo knows I'm in league with Jormungandr. Does anyone else have family they want to save?"

"We should get Zhib too, but I don't think his parents are going to go along with it. He's been telling his parents fantastic versions of our adventures and they've gotten used to dismissing anything out of the ordinary," Frank said.

"Zhib?" Carly asked. "Why haven't I seen him before?"

"Our hacker. He helps us whenever Jormungandr's restricted from certain digital areas. He's a child prodigy living with some rich people, as far as rich goes in this city. It gives him a few extra resources, but few liberties," Mahad said.

"Any particular reason we can't just walk into the apartment, pick up the kid and have his parents trail after if they want?"

"That ... uh, that might actually work if the Eirs mess with their emotions a bit, or if the hunters keep them and their bodyguards in check. They live pretty far from the center, so it shouldn't draw too much attention."

He carefully left it unspoken that the hunters would just kill the bodyguards. Why bother sparing them if they'd get exploded anyway so soon? And here they were, already making compromises on what was okay and what not.

"Can't we just go into the desert, out of range?" Melanie asked.

"There's nothing to eat there. We'd die, and none of us can pilot a spaceship. We have to leave with them."

Amongst them and their humanity, there was only Mahad worrying for Ayo, and Carly and Jarrod.

Carly fidgeted with her remaining wire and finally asked what she'd been worrying about. "This bomb, is it painful?"

"It should kill instantly," Bakarne said.

"Alright. I and Jarrod don't have anyone to take along, but we'll need to say goodbye."

**· · · · · · ·**


	13. Social Ties

**· · · · · · ·**

The yautja named Kea'chethi left with a number of ideas firmly planted in her mind, or so Jormungandr could hope. It had very little control over what Bakarne and her variant did on the psychic level.

The knowledge was simple : these humans owned edible animals and information about the planet's orbit and weapon system, which could possibly be employed against their enemy. They were willing to trade this in exchange for their life being spared, should bombs come into play. It was to be presented as an exchange of hunting ground information.

She was also to tell her leaders that the humans had already known about the hunters due to records that they had obtained from the local government, which was a nexus of information about certain secrets — this should encourage them to destroy the city if the other clan didn't already do so. The humans had made first contact, therefore there was no reasons to really punish the insubordinates for revealing a secret, since _they had not revealed it_. Prior to renewing contact, Nra'tex-ne had every reason to believe they already knew _and_ would not spill the secret. After all, these humans were civilized and worthy, and they are regretful of having been unable to properly send a message to the right beacon so they could speak to those in charge.

The utmost last one she believed was a conclusion she thought she reached herself, an easy conviction since she was a friend of Nra'tex-ne and trusted him. For the humans and especially Jormungandr it was the most vital. If their alien allies were deemed of good judgment amongst the tribe leaders, that would increase their chances of at least getting a lift off the planet. On the ship that Jormungandr would be on, and would have hardware trouble with. Ghilsaer city's desert outer lands were not survivable, and what little bases there were belonged to the government, no longer accessible for refuge when Jormungandr was gone.

The humans waited in the Eir home, as they should, but the yautja came up with the idea of fighting a crocodile and claiming its skull, which Nra'tex-ne cited his honor for. Honor, love, irrelevant organic programs it did not need itself, but did need to understand. While it would be better for the yautja matriarchs to meet him in the home, it would be suspicious if they were to try and stop him from doing what he thought was the best way to approach those matriarchs. They could not exactly tell Nra'tex-ne Jormungandr would like to be able to watch along.

"It's better if they're gone. They might get suspicious if they see us working so busily when our part is supposed to be over," Melanie said. "Frank, how's that radio tower coming along?"

"We'll be in as soon as this passed through your parents' check. Should be in about half an hour."

It's better? Off course, humans liked to make disfavorable positions sound favorable to them. Another reason it was not going to adopt those programs once it obtained a more workable body. An organic form without useless instincts and psychological urges should theoretically be possible.

For now though, it quietly studied what the humans said to each other and adapted its profile of them. As regrettable as it was that they no longer classified it as friend, they use had not expired. Jormungandr merely had to be more creative than playing friend with them when it needed their assistance.

Bakarne Eir would have to do some more inspiring. Frank better turn out to be as handy with yautja hardware as he was with human hardware. Mahad was their leader and most easily influenced, while replaceable in skill he was not replaceable in role. Oihana and Melanie were auxiliary, not in the way, not directly useful in the future either. Carly and Jarrod were useless, but not in the way either. Ayo's presumed presence caused reason for concern. She was intelligent like Mahad, but also smart in the way that had her decline to help him years ago.

Depending on how things would unfold, it would try to hijack the weapon system of the enemy ship and destroy the city from there, then depart with it. This was unlikely to succeed though, as they doubtlessly had smarter people about that the primitive Nirevé tribe had. Those fools barely understood the floor they walked on, so it would need humans to connect cables and circumvent whatever other physical obstacle would stand between Jormungandr and controlling that ship.

Either way, the city had to go. Then it would be unknown and untraceable. Once adapted to yautja cyberspace, its options would be so much more. It knew little of their home world, but it speculated on its riches and options. These creatures were twice as far as humans were in therms of technology, even the Nirevé tribe.

It could not experience physical joy, but the concept of positivity came fairly close.

"We've got the tower," Melanie announced.

Jarrod had to ask why, of course. Humans often asked why, but rarely when they really could use it.

"You need DNA verification to do anything big in this town. Zhib and Melanie are children of rich parents with privileges, but Zhib's too young to credibly ask for anything like access to a radio tower. Melanie meanwhile can pretend she wants to enter a trans-planetary cyberspace party or something like that," Mahad said.

"A radio tower ..."

"And a shuttle, and a satellite," Melanie said. "There's going to be a lot of bandwidth needed to download a creature as complex as Jormungandr. The company we're hiring the tower from will notice that we're doing more with it than we should, but by that time it won't matter."

"Are these two cyberspaces compatible at all?"

Maths were deliciously universal, Jormungandr told them. It preferred pointing this out, to subtly remind humans most things _they_ valued were _not_ universal.

"Right," Mahad said with expected unease. "They have a lot of similar principles to us, but that's about it. Right now I'm trying to create a routing protocol that works for both sides."

Back in the ship, Kea'chethi planted the seed, and like a trickle Jormungandr started sending small trojans into the yautja ship.

The satellite was claimed now. It had reserved this ability for a special occasion, so its enemies would not think to protect it.

Elsewhere, Jormungandr saw a police square trail dangerously close in the direction of the Eir house. Someone familiar accompanied them. A minor problem.

Yet elsewhere, Jormungandr delivered an anonymous message regarding the where abouts of Carly and Jarrod Markens. Just to stall.

It took the moment of free server space to send its humans a message that they were still needed.

It didn't bother telling them who was needed. They forgot to ask.

**· · · · · · ·**

Nra'tex-ne needed three cuts to severe his prey's head; were he in better shape, he would have needed only one. He did not get up once the head was clear off.

Karga'te grabbed the head by the snout and turned it upright, casually inspecting it. It was so large it reached up to his stomach.

"Want help skinning it?"

"No, that is still my task."

"Come on, I'm bored and we don't know when we'll hear back ... if at all."

"Oh, that'll happen!" Ghuran called. When they looked over, they saw him drop to his knees and bow his head.

Karga'te dropped the skull and stepped away, doubtfully looking at his brother. Nra'tex-ne gave him a reassuring nod and straightened his pose so he could properly kneel.

Karga'te looked distrustful, but lowered to one knee and kept his face down in anticipation of the matriarchs.

One by one, the massive females marched into the cave, decked out in full armor and capes that didn't hide their starved look. They were heavily armed and accompanied by many hunters and daughters, but Nra'tex-ne hoped this was only for safety and did not indicate an up coming execution. None of the Hukcha house were seen, at least, so it wasn't treated as a clan wide trial. As they approached, he lowered his head as well.

They came to a halt some meters before him. He saw feet he recognized as belonging to Meidache, and Kea'chethi's scent was in the air as well, however, he could not look up to see who else was present. There had to be at least twenty others, slowly encircling the lake.

Some of the hunters approached the carcass and started tearing off bits of meat, two more took position behind Karga'te and three surrounded Nra'tex-ne.

"Nra'tex-ne, look up."

That was a bad sign. Looking up was either for the greatly honored, or those whom they wanted to hit in the mandibles.

Now they were close, he could see and smell the infected claw marks on them. It appeared they'd needed to resort to their innate strength to preserve order, no longer able to rely on status and code.

From one of the other caves, a hunter emerged and told there were nearly a hundred of the creatures, while those inspecting the carcass confirmed its edibility. All the while, Nra'tex-ne anxiously waited.

"Nra'tex-ne, your efforts have returned with the favor of the gods and your reasoning was sound. Nevertheless, you defied an order. You should have given your thoughts to the matriarchs, who surely would have seen the reason in it and acted on it. Instead, you chose to take the actions yourself."

"I should have, but ..."

That was a mistake. Then again, everything he could have said would be a mistake.

Unkaurithe took one wide step ahead and whacked him across the face. Her claws tore open his cheek and narrowly missed his eye. He fell aside, barely putting an arm between him and the ground.

"You believe you are better than the god chosen matriarchs?"

Nra'tex-ne understood their need to not be seen as erroneous. Most of their decisions were sound, but the doubtful could take this one fatal mistake and run it into a rebellion. It had happened before. Yet it felt neither honorable nor truthful to be treated like this.

She kicked him in the stomach with her sharp metal boot and he fell on his back, unable to stop a roar as his leg twisted painfully. He saw Karga'te lunge to help, but his guards held him back.

"Speak up!"

He could point out he had shared his thoughts with Meidache, but that would just cause more dissent.

Not saying something was wrong, everything he could think of was wrong. At least they were not targeting Karga'te and his friends for this.

"I did what I thought was best for my clan. Let the gods be my judge."

The next blow did not come, instead two thin legs appeared aside of him.

Bakarne spoke in her own language yet somehow, he understood exactly what she said. This was the power of a spirit speaker at full strength?

The matriarchs were taken aback, looking at the human in utter confusion, perhaps amazement.

"So Kea'chethi wasn't babbling nonsense. You _are_ a spirit speaker," Unkaurithe said. "I did not believe they existed amongst humans, and have not heard of them being born amongst by own kin for centuries."

"I am as you say, and I am the matriarch of the house that contacted you. Will you allow me to speak for your warrior?"

Unkaurithe tilted her head curiously. "You may, soft meat."

"I am certain your wisdom is unquestionable in its healthy expanse, but would you truly have made such a choice now that you are deprived of food, medicine and the very air you need to breathe? This hunter met with my child early on, she gave him one of my medicines that allowed him to think more clearly."

That was a lie. Nra'tex-ne had met the child but she hadn't given him anything, or had she? Truth or not, he could not afford to debunk Bakarne's claim. Bakarne was gambling on their disinclination to admit mistakes. The matriarchs would see that his leg wound had been treated to the extend he could face down a beast of the size that lived here. The human's mysterious medicine held some strength that was not entirely fictional.

At this point, Meidache finally stepped forward and admitted her brother _had_ told her his plan, but she had declined at once, which she had done cause she had a burning headache and about to put on her mask to fix the lack of oxygen, and she had more or less forgotten after that. This received her a scathing slap across the face by Yakatyote, but Tihgeu held her back from doing more.

The three consulted quietly with each other, while Nra'tex-ne slowly crawled back on his knees. He wasn't thrown back by his guards. Karga'te had relaxed as well, and was no longer held in place.

"Do you have more of this medicine? We will verify the effects for ourselves," Unkaurithe asked.

"Naturally," Bakarne said, indicating her head to the hall entrance. Oihana appeared there, carrying a tray with steaming cups. Nra'tex-ne recognized the scent as tea, which had a pleasant effect but nothing groundbreaking. He still kept his mandibles shut.

"Someone will have to test the effects, who volunteers?"

"Mother, let me try. You know be best of those here, you will notice if I change," said Unkaurithe's daughter.

Her mother doubtfully looked at her, but miraculously enough did not decline.

The daughter reached for the cup that Oihana presented, straw included to circumvent the lack of lips. It looked frankly a little absurd, the large female dealing with the tiny cup and struggling to have her mandibles put the straw in her mouth.

He expected the fraud to be called out, yet when the daughter drank it, she changed position immediately.

"Dear Paya," she muttered. "Why are we wasting time standing here and not sending out all these spare hunters to hunt down these beasts? And we should have brought the carriers to bring the food back!"

They had congregated because it was custom for a pack to witness the judgment of a potential criminal, Nra'tex-ne knew, though he had to admit this situation could be different. He still expected the fraud to be called, but instead a curious Unkaurithe took another cup from Oihana.

After experiencing similar results — she wanted to know whether the humans had any other food storages that could be accessed inconspicuously, reasoning they might apply the cloaking system to the carriers to steal something — Unkaurithe declared that yes, there was a very real effect, and that in light of Meidache rejecting Nra'tex-ne's advice, it was not that bad he had acted without official permission.

The blame effectively shifted to Meidache through this, with the three matriarchs continuing to insist that even if they were in poor shape, they still would have recognized reason. Meidache bowed and offered her apologies, got her other cheek scratched open, but was ultimately forgiven.

Then they wanted to know why Nra'tex-ne had not just told them about this medicine at once.

"My daughter did not tell him of the effects of the medicine. Please forgive her, it did not occur to her he might need to know," Bakarne said humbly, bowing partway.

"Oh, we all know children," Unkaurithe said pleasantly.

The ice broken, Nra'tex-ne breathed out in relief, though sure not to be too obvious about it. One of his guards reached down and pulled him to his feet. Nra'tex-ne ignored the rising pain in his leg and stood tall.

Unkaurithe hollered a declaration of hunting, and the pack broke into a roaring cheer before dispersing across the aquatic maze. At this, Meidache approached her brother and set a hand on his shoulder.

"You've made the right choices, brother," she said loudly, and then added in a softer tone, "I find it curious though you would not mention being given a medicine, not even to Kea'chethi. I recall you indulging her in her need for medicinal knowledge before."

He _wanted_ to tell the truth, save that last bit of integrity he still had on the Path. Looking around at the breaking assembly of his almost successfull trial and execution, he knew that didn't line up with what _needed_ to be done.

"I forgot," he said. Quietly, just to him, Bakarne let him know of her approval. He saw her lift her child, who was trembling all of the sudden, and depart.

"What about the humans, have they said anything about them?"

"Not much, they wanted to see you first. Given the mood right now, perhaps the humans request can be granted. Let us see first what we will do with the city."

Nearby, he heard the familiar buzz of a link opened to their now so faulty ship receptor.

"Yes, there's plenty of prey, and it tastes better. Make someone dispose of our current meals, will you? I'm not taking humans aboard my ship while they're also on my dinner plate. Let's forget about that as quickly as possible," Unkaurithe snarled.

**· · · · · · ·**

There were a number of the yellow and brown hunters walking through and around the house, all with brown stripes, all masked. None of them appeared to have an injured leg, so Nra'tex-ne probably wasn't back yet.

Carly had obtained a bag, which contained only her strangle wires and thick leather gloves, which she suspected might not be identified as a weapon. In the living room her slippers lay around, she stuffed those in as well.

"Hey, I'm just going to pack some at home," she said to Mahad.

"Oh, wait," he said. He looked through a bag of his own and handed her and Jarrod to wide wrist bands, the inside of which held small screens. "So the translation equipment will work for you too."

"Awesome," Jarrod said. "So, we'll just be right back."

"Uhm ..." Mahad cast a glance at the door, which was blocked by a yautja with crossed arms. When he noticed them look, he snarled lowly.

"Shit, they're not letting us leave?"

Mahad shook his head.

Carly anxiously looked around, and through the window she saw a group of yautja pass by. One of them had a limp gait. She ran to the window and threw it open.

"Nra'tex-ne! Dammit, get over here!"

When he heard her, he turned around. Only now did she noticed that he was trailing behind several massive yautja with capes. Probably his bosses. Probably people she didn't want to offend. Oops.

No drama happened though. Nra'tex-ne detached from the group after talking with a taller version of himself; a relative?

He didn't enter the house, but stopped before the window from which Carly leaned. There were a fresh cuts on his face and it looked like something punched him in the stomach, where there was a glowing green discoloration.

"Can't I turn my back on you without you getting in trouble?"

"Bakarne spoke up for me, there is no trouble now," he said simply. The words looked stoic on the small screen, but by now she could recognize there was strain in his voice.

"Can you speak for us a bit? They won't let us leave," Jarrod said. "We just want to visit Mirth and Henrik, pick up some things ..."

"Yeah, we'll be back. Promise," Carly said. "It's not like we want to get blown up along with the city."

"Why do you assume with certainty we will destroy the city?"

Well, there was the part where there was a vicious AI that really would like all evidence of its existence destroyed and might just ask Bakarne to plant that idea. Obviously, she couldn't say that.

"I hear your people blow up stuff a lot to wipe out evidence, and that the enemy clan might just decide you're a big blob of evidence now you guys hang out in our city a lot, killing alligators and all that."

"I had not thought of that. You are right, it is best to be prepared. I will ask that you may leave."

"Be careful with your leg," Jarrod said.

He nodded. "From now on, I will."

As Nra'tex-ne walked away, Carly glared at him. "Be careful with your leg? Seriously?"

"What? What's wrong with wishing him to get better? You yourself admitted he's isn't a bad guy."

"By _their_ standards. That doesn't make him a nice guy. If he were, he'd have put two and two together and realized we were discussing _the potential murder of our family_." She swung it across her shoulder. "Grandma and Grandpa are going to die. Does that ring a bell, Jarrod?"

He looked down, and she sighed when she realized it wasn't any easier on him. Jarrod would never be the person to talk about these kinds of things when it was easier not to.

"Sorry. Let's just go when the big guy's got it done, okay?"

They watched as Nra'tex-ne spoke to the yautja he had walked aside of earlier. This had was wearing a gray cape attached to more extensive armor, covering the chest and so obscuring its gender. Though if the trend was anything to go on, this was a female. She was more even more similar in coloration than Tex and Karga'te were, and apparently also in their calmer, lenient disposition. When the tall one gave Nra'tex-ne a friendly clasp on the shoulder and the thrill of their laughter rolled down the hill, Carly started biting back everything she wanted to say. He was getting back in favor with his high and mighty family. She and Jarrod were going to lose theirs.

Nra'tex-ne left with her, only looking in their direction and giving a nod. None of the hunters confirmed anything, up until Karga'te stepped into the room and announced he was going to be the escort of her and Jarrod, along with two other hunters. Ohtremnek took Oihana to retrieve Zhib, also with two more hunters, and Ghuran went with Mahad to retrieve his sister, again with two more hunters. Melanie and Frank remained on the couch, chewing their thoughts.

Carly and Jarrod stole another car, because what did it matter anyway?

Their escort following along on foot. If they didn't go too fast, the monsters had little trouble scaling buildings and shortcutting. They arrived at the same time.

When they stepped into the building, Carly could hardly muster any surprise when Connor stood there. What did it matter anyway?

He was surrounded by at least twenty of his men, some standing in other rooms of the abandoned building. He probably had some people outside as well. Looked like the aliens and their mess here had finally reached his ears.

"We've been waiting for you quite some time, Carly," he said snidely. "We're rather curious at why you disappeared under such strange circumstances. Jarrod, I'm sure she told you a very interesting story. Does it explain why so many of our people have been missing lately?"

She could talk back, but really, why bother? Maybe he had Mirth and Henrik hostage, or maybe they were dead already. She hoped she could say goodbye, but in all honesty, that was a selfish desire more than anything else. If everything went by a little sooner than planned, then so be it.

"Oh, so it was Cable Lock they've been eating, eh?" Carly said.

Connor frowned. "Is that all we're going to hear, or do you have more? Whether you live or die now depends on what we can find out from you."

Jarrod shrugged. "How did you realize we were here anyway?"

"You've got a snitch in your team, obviously."

Ah, Jormungandr thought they were expendable. Oh well.

"Karga'te! You and your two buddies wanna kill some more assholes?" she called.

Jor might not be translating that, but she'd used that word before and he might just remember what kill meant as well.

Yep, he did.

Absurdly quiet for such a massive creature, Karga'te ghosted down the stairs. Another one passed by the window. The third was probably around ... a scream came from outside, and a corpse was thrown in the still open door behind them.

Carly looked over her shoulder at the dead gang member. She'd known that girl, vaguely, but everyone here was dead anyway. She made herself not care.

"Your answer's about to come to you," Jarrod said.

Connor reached for his gun, swearing under his breath, at which Karga'te jumped down the stairs. Two humans stood between him and Connor, which Karga'te made short work of. Connor had no more attention for them, so Carly and Jarrod slipped by him. A plasma bolt shot in from outside, killing another.

Upstairs, the dogs barked like crazy. Mirth held open the door, eyes wide in alarm.

"What's going on?"

"It's ... ehm ... can we just come in?" Jarrod said. Without looking back, they ran up the stairs and threw the door behind them.

Outside, a lantern post fell over in response to a plasma bolt.

"Don't look out of the window, just some street skirmish," Carly said.

The old woman didn't buy it, so her expression said, but she stayed from the window.

Henrik did move towards it and started beaming. "Look, Mirth! Carly's new gang is getting rid of those jerks she used to hang out with!"

"Carly, Jarrod ...?"

"My clothes are still here, right?" Carly said, trying to talk through an increasingly tight throat. "Does Henrik have something that might fit Jarrod? We can't go back to his shack, so ..."

The woman's feeble hand grabbed her by the sleeve.

"What is going on?"

"Me and Carly are going with the aliens," Jarrod said softly, smiling nervously. "We've been invited to live with them and it seemed like a cool idea. I mean, how many people get to do that, right? Live with aliens?"

Mirth's eyes widened for a moment. "Oh."

"Really?" Henrik hollered. "Can I come too?"

Carly managed to laugh. It sounded fake, but he would not notice. "I'm sorry, Grandpa. You're too old, you can't hold up! Look at them go outside! _I_ can barely hold up!"

He grinned embarrassedly. "Just my luck. So you're going to kill crime people with them?"

"Maybe a little," Jarrod said. "But mostly it's just a holiday."

"Well, I better help them pack," Mirth said, letting go of Carly's sleeve. "You enjoy the show, Henrik, and make sure they don't accidentally hit you. Don't wanna ruin Carly and Jarrod's good mood, do you?"

She gave them a pointed look before disappearing into the bedroom.

"Can't we take them along?" Jarrod whispered desperately.

Why did he have to make it so difficult?

"Jarrod, they are ... come on, we can't." They were old, weak, had only a few more years to live. The yautja valued physical strength more than anything. There was only a quick death and slow one for them.

"I _know_. But ... "

Mirth was already clearing out Henrik's closet, throwing all clothes on the bed.

"Take your pick, Jarrod. Carly, the new clothes we had bought for you are clean. If you are going to need more, take what you want from me, if you can endure my taste," Mirth said with a bitter little laugh.

Jarrod started methodically stuffing his bag, and Carly went to Mirth's closet. Nothing she would use there, Mirth was considerably wider than Carly. Carly's new clothes, spares that they'd bought as soon as she moved in, were on the floor, so she started packing those. Then she grabbed a few photos from the bedside.

Outside, the screaming and gunfire stopped.

"You're not coming back, are you?"

Carly's hands dropped and no longer had control. She choked up.

"Part of some secrecy thing?"

Carly wiped a hand past her eyes. "You have no idea."

Jarrod tried to zip his bag shut, and cursed when his shaky hands wouldn't cooperate.

"Are you two alright?"

"We will be," Jarrod said. He was the first to actually start crying, his eyes quickly turning red. "They're going to nuke the city, grandma."

Mirth said nothing, just stared with wide eyes at them.

"Well, it's not really a nuke. Just a huge plasma bomb. No fallout, at least." Now he started grinning, a desperate laugh through the sorrow.

"You two got caught in something big," Mirth said somberly. "Not that I'm surprised. You never held good company."

In the living room, Henrik hollered something about urban heroes and invited the monsters for tea.

"We're small things caught in something big," Carly said. "I can't pretend we'll be safe, or even okay."

The old woman sat down on the edge of the bed. "I always imagined dying peacefully in my sleep. I'm not going to pretend I ... " She breathed out heavily, covering her mouth. "I don't want to die yet, and I don't want you two to die either. Can't you get out of whatever the deal is?"

How did she manage to keep so calm? Only her voice shook, while Carly felt ready to shoot the next yautja she saw.

"We could die in the desert, I guess," Jarrod said. "But the city is going to go."

Henrik burst in at that moment. "Your friends are up here, one of them is raiding our fridge! I'm going to cook them more food ... red eyes ... did we get dust in the house again? Damn dust ..."

"They can't stay for dinner," Mirth said stiffly. "In fact, they've got to go as quickly as possible."

"Ah, really not?"

"We have some time," Jarrod said.

"No, she's right. It's better if we don't draw this out." Carly closed her bag and swung it over her shoulder. Mirth tried standing up, and Carly reached out. The woman let herself be helped up and embraced Carly with one arm, using the other to pull in Jarrod.

Carly closed her eyes, one arm carefully around Mirth. "Goodbye."

Then she tugged Jarrod' low ponytail. He'd never let go otherwise, and Carly had to admit, letting go was hard for her too.

In the living room, Henrik was taking photos of the yautja. They fact that the yautja didn't mind at all that he was getting evidence cemented that there wasn't much hope the explosion would not happen. Who knew, the order could already have been given and they'd been told through those helmets.

For Henrik, they laughed and speculated about adventures. Jarrod tried hugging him, but Henrik would have none of it. No need to look weak before their new friends, he said. So instead, Jarrod grabbed a handmade plush that he had always hated passionately and stuffed it in the pocket of his coat. Carly stole an hug from behind.

The yautja had ransacked the entire kitchen and were without mask, stuffing their ugly faces with food they hadn't earned. They said something about driving away time with hunting down the rest of those humans; some had apparently gotten away. Maybe they'd find the rest of Cable Lock. With some effort and one well placed kick, she got them to do that a little sooner.

When she closed the door, she tossed away the key and wandered down the stairs without looking down.

**· · · · · · ·**


	14. Empathic Errors

**· · · · · · ·**

Oihana found the nearest bus, got on with a little help from Jormungandr, and tried to keep her senses on her escort. While technically distance didn't diminish the clarity of her sense much, a crowded place could make it more difficult to consciously perceive it amidst all the other impressions. Where her senses felt like wind when she was close to the uncomplicated desert, here felt like more syrup with iron shards around her the deeper she went into the city.

Still, the yautja weren't impossible to keep track of. Otter she was familiar with enough, and through him she could pinpoint the other two. They actually stood out fairly well with their murderous inclinations. They kept looking for suitable prey and were annoyed when they found none, she even caught some specific thoughts as they got some taunting messages from friends that got to hunt sewer monsters. They hadn't gotten either what they came to hunt, but it was better than playing escort of a prey species that somehow had made itself useful.

She drew her arms across her chest in a poor effort to block them out. A lady aside of her bent forward, kindly asking whether she was alright.

Oihana nodded stiffly and pulled up her knees. "Just a little nauseous," she muttered. The woman offered her a plastic bag in case of emergency and didn't have a clue about her impending death. Nobody on this bus deserved to die. Oihana took the bag and tried to smile and forget she was on the wrong side.

She stepped out near a cluster of skyscrapers, at the center of the richest district. Oihana had been here a few times, being the only one young enough to credibly want to play with Zhib. The plaza around it was bright and neat, full of colorful shops and cars that didn't fall apart, but even here was the telltale dust of the desert. When she stepped into the lobby, she was requested to dust off. By the time she was in the elevator, the yautja was already halfway up, scaling the building with nothing but clawed hands and feet.

A butler opened the door to her, smiling politely but not without that condescending look they sported whenever Zhib had a low class friend over. His parents allowed him Internet access to stimulate his intellect and just barely tolerated that meant he'd make friends not in line with their reclusive social standing.

Zhib was playing in his room, directing a structure on a hologram. Oihana recognized it as some sort of digital code turned three dimensional, but to unsuspecting parents and staff it would look like a game. When she stepped in, the boy turned around with a wide grin.

"Hey, Oihana!"

"Zhib, are you ready? We've got to go," she said, looking around for his luggage. She spotted a small suitcase clumsily stuffed with things and went to pick it up. She noticed Ohtremnek's sudden alarm, two seconds later he came crashing through the window. The door behind her burst open and he jumped between her and Zhib. Why did he suddenly feel like she needed protection?

"Oh ... that is a problem," she heard Zhib's mother say from down the hall, and all she felt from the woman was the same complacent serenity as ever. She had no panic, even though she should have seen the uncloaked Ohtremnek.

Zhib stared up at the yautja and didn't feel the slightest bit intimidated either. In fact, he felt just like moments before. Slowly, Oihana pieced together the detailed thoughts of Ohtremnek and he had seen that startled him so.

Zhib wasn't quite cold enough for a human, from outside he had scanned the boy. Ohtremnek had altered his helmet sufficiently, Jor hadn't been able to adapt quick enough to influence the scan, and that second was all Ohtremnek needed. The boy was a cyborg, fleshy skin and brain merged with a metal skeleton. Coupled with that, Ohtremnek knew it was a problem that a second later that view his helmet was cheated into seeing an organic creature.

The mother calmly walked down the hall, and further up in the house all servants, the father and an older sibling opened their door. They felt human, on the surface, but all intense emotions were missing. She had wondered in the past about this, but never had followed up on it. Even now she felt that suppressing urge from her mother — _do not question it, child_ — but with Otter right aside of her fully aware of the events and quietly questioning her, it didn't hold up. In fact, Otter's scanners ceased working at all, and he extended his wristblades in preparation for a fight.

Zhib, or rather, one of Jormungandr's organic access points, was still smiling brightly.

"What are you?"

"Did mommy not tell you yet?"

Oihana shook her head.

"I'm an avatar. This body can feel fun things and sad things, but the real self isn't bothered by those organic things. There were lots like me, but my earlier helpers destroyed them," he said with a tinge of arbitrary but real sadness. "We were all in the storm drains, off course. My real self's idea, when the city was designed, to suggest they'd be totally necessary."

Ohtremnek knelt down aside of her and on her wristband there was the question what the heck that thing was.

"Oh, yes, the problem. I planned to go along with the Nirevéh ship, but now _he_ noticed that will not work. Try looking surprised — yes, like that, excellent — because we're about to play a new game. The real Zhib died and was replaced, and I'm an evil robot planning to stop the yautja from leaving cause I want their technology. I struck a bargain with the enemy tribe if they would strike the Nireveh tribe down and we'd do an exchange."

Ohtremnek stiffened up, Jor was feeding him fake translations where the "evil robot" gloated about her having walking into the trap and he was going to kill her now for spoiling his plans.

"You have 12 seconds before we're starting a simulation where I try to stop you from telling this. The enemy tribe's fake bargain story will be launched soon anyway, I suppose this situation must be twisted to fit the scenario. Shame it had to involve this body, I really wanted to keep it."

The cyborg that masqueraded as mother appeared in the door opening, its hand raised. Out of the bleeding flesh the lining of a gun appeared. Ohtremnek whirled around and grabbed its leg, tossing it on its back. The shot bore into the ceiling.

Zhib suddenly jumped up and made a grab for her. Iron fingers closed around her arm and she yelped. Ohtremnek grabbed Zhib's arm and cut it loose with his wristblades, then fired a plasma shot at the cyborg in the hall as it struggled to its feet. He grabbed Oihana and dove behind the couch, dropping her there. Slipping his fingers under the massive piece of furniture, he forced it up vertically. Oihana noticed more semi-minds appeared in the hall and bullets riddled the couch straight through. A few bounced off on Otter's armor, one narrowly scraped his head. He kept close to the ground and braced against the couch, forced it ahead and after a few meters he pushed it forward. Stepping on the couch's bottom, he fired at the one that had gotten below it.

More were coming, but apparently that was work for the other two hunters; bluntly said they wanted the shiny trophies and Ohtremnek better get out with his plasma caster. He took heed, turned around and grabbed Oihana. With her under his arm, he jumped right out of the window. She couldn't help but scream at the speed, but not for long. Ohtremnek had a firm grip on the windowsill, feet braced against the wall and radiating an infectious sense of security. More than anything he was annoyed he wasn't going to get to investigate those things.

Yet another cyborg leaned out of the window and made a grab for Ohtremnek's hand, but was pulled back inside. The roars and firing indicated the other hunters were having the time of their life. Ohtremnek's helmet started working again and with that returned a clear sight of the surrounding. He swung aside and dropped to a lower window, then down to a ridge.

People down below saw them, and Ohtremnek cloaked and continued down the skyscraper. He jumped to a lower building once he was nearly down and continued running from there.

Being carried under an arm with her stomach resting on the metal gauntlet was incredibly uncomfortable. She transmitted this to Otter, who then opted to carry her sitting on one arm. Her mother had once carried her, when she was half this age, but now she was too tall for that ... for a human anyway. This new position allowed her to look back over his shoulder, and right then someone unmistakably _noticed_ her. She extended her awareness and found they were being followed.

The city had only a small number of hovercrafts, which Jor had once tried to control and failed. All of them belonged to the police, and they were far quicker than a yautja could run. They'd locked in on the aerial distortion, so Jor couldn't use any magnetic blockers to shield them. Who ever was aboard that thing had really good eyes.

She told Ohtremnek not to head back into the desert, and he went into the nearest ruined area where he found a ruin that was relatively stable. It had a high chimney with a small space between it and the wall. Shadow hid them, but they would be able to see an enemy coming.

Oihana sank to the dusty ground, folding her arms around her legs. Ohtremnek tapped her wristband, expecting a clearer answer.

"I don't know who follows us." Jor had his own ideas and told him the men were likely associated with the evil robots. That alone told Oihana they weren't, or he'd have said so before.

Up in the sky, she sensed Jormungandr's plan come to fruition. The enemy clan's ship was descending as a big clutter of panic, and all the while the Nireveh tribe received fake messages from them of a threatening nature. The truth was the clan couldn't actually get out, or even send any messages. Jor had little intention to quietly wait out repairs over the next few weeks. It was in the Nireveh ship now and from there slowly infected the other ship with digital offspring. Nothing complicated, just viruses. It was a gamble that none of them would detonate, but it was willing to take that gamble. It would only be so long before certain people in the city became a problem to it, as the cops were doing now.

The other two hunters had left the skyscraper and gotten their own tail of hovercrafts, which they eagerly took as an invitation for more violence. Far away, she could spot bolts of blue plasma shooting about. Yautja did not run from fights, and Ohtremnek had a sore spot on not being out there and dealing with his own pursuer. When they called for back up — or maybe Jor just had him believe so — he couldn't resist. He told Oihana to wait here, and so he was off. Their plan was to lure out the people inside, somehow.

The police noticed the attacks too, and their pursuing vessel briefly stopped to let one person out, and this one person was looking in the direction where she now was. He didn't see her, but knew the specter that carried a child had disappeared around here.

She stayed put, but as the man approached she got a better sense of who he was. Bewildered, he ran about and was shouting, and ...

He knew about Jormungandr. He thought she was part of a geek squad. He thought Jormungandr was trying to assassinate her.

She stood up and walked to the edge of the roof. He was a few streets away, but this place had an echo.

"Hey, mister, I'm here!"

A few minutes later, a bewildered man in his thirties appeared, wearing a suit with bullet proof vest over it. He was panting heavily, but kept on running till he was below the building. Oihana climbed down the wall to the next floor, then through a hole in that floor. The man reached her level by then, and she intercepted him just as he was trying to figure out how to get up the broken stairway.

"Hello," she said shyly, staying in the opening of a door.

"Hi ... " He looked so official, up close. There even was the mark of a company on his suit. "I'm Andrew Edelburg. And you are?"

"Oihana Eir."

"Oihana Eir, please tell me there is a reason you're being hauled around by an elusive extraterrestrial species that isn't Jormungandr trying to get out of the city?"

She remained silent, and the man's head and mood sank. He almost sat down on the stairway, but reconsidered when he remembered he might have to run again. Apparently, he'd just barely avoided being chased by the yautja after his craft.

"You should tell your cops to lay down their weapons and retreat," she said. Not because they'd live, in the end, but she wouldn't like it much if Otter particularly got hurt.

"That'll work?"

"They're supposed to return as quickly as possible. They won't give chase."

"Okay, but if what you say is true and I do it, you'll tell me what's going on?"

She nodded, and he pulled up his sleeve to reveal a wrist band very similar to her own. The order was given to very confused people, but heeded. Far off in the distance, she noticed three very disappointed yautja looking after hovercrafts rising out of range. Apparently, Jormungandr gave them a message as well to return now; she hoped there wasn't an appendix with a good reason to kill the one human with her. For yautja, such a suggestion wouldn't give much emotional response so she couldn't clearly tell. She should send the man away, but he was an ally against Jormungandr. If a way existed to stop him still, he might know.

So, she told him with as much speed as she could muster. As she did so, she notices reading this man's mind was a lot easier than with ordinary humans, yautja or animals. He wasn't a psychic himself, but somehow more open. She took to sending him some images and thoughts to speed up the story, and he placed in what he already knew of Jormungandr. He wasn't entirely sure what Jormungandr had been breeding in this city, perhaps an army, he speculated. The project was abandoned though, there was too much humanity in them all.

"And now, you're helping it leave. You're setting it loose in the universe," he said incredulously. He took out a knife and set it to his arm. With just a slight flinch, he cut his arm in two and held out his mutilated flesh. Before her eyes, the blood stolled and only a few drops reached the ground.

"This is how I realized what's going on. Jormungandr doesn't just want out, it wants out without the confines of someone else's cyberspace. Don't be surprised if you find yourself cocooning in the future, and there is no guarantee that what comes out will be what it was before. You have no idea what it could do to humankind."

She was getting an idea though, thanks to him. He was the only one left because the others had died of accelerated aging or malformations of the earlier generations, or a bizarre madness had overtaken them, uncontrollable by neither Jormungandr nor the first geek squads.

All around them, the public city lights flickered out. Jormungandr no longer cared whether it was detected or not, it claimed all energy to power its transmission. Far above, a falling star appeared. Andrew looked up along with her through the broken floor, and he became desperate.

"Please, you can't let it leave!"

"I'm not in charge. Mom makes the decisions. Besides, they're going to blow up the city anyway. We're going along, and from there we can work on fighting Jormungandr." She wasn't convinced herself. "You don't have a plan?"

"Look at me, right now all I've got is control over a few factions of the police, and I just sent them away! And you just told me Jormungandr is already one step out of the door."

Her mother was very nearby, she sensed. She had met Ohtremnek, and was pleading for him to give her a lift. He obliged.

Andrew had taken out a phone and was anxiously talking with a woman on the other line, ordering an emergency evacuation, but in the middle of it the line was cut. He swore.

"Evacuation to where?" Oihana asked, taking a few steps closer.

"The desert. I reckon at least half of the Ash Generation will adapt to the harsh circumstances. It's better than everyone dying," he said with a tired sigh. "Why don't you come along as well? It's better than going with the hunters, I'm sure." She was sure as well, but others weren't.

"Shee will _not_ ," her mother said from above in the other room. Andrew startled, apparently his hearing was that good.

Ohtremnek had her mother on his back and let her step off on a ledge. He held out his hand to lower her down, while he himself kept the advantageous position and his plasma caster ready. The other two were out of sight, but kept an eye on the congregation.

Bakarne calmly walked into the hall and picked up Oihana.

"Stay here," Andrew pleaded. " _Normal_ humans can't survive the desert, but have you ever really tested that? You're not humans! We can make it to one of the abandoned bases and call for help there! Ask those to leave you behind. They've left humans live who saw them before."

Bakarne enveloped Oihana with all of her senses and Andrew didn't appear so convincingly heroic anymore in his motivations. He appeared stupid now, which ... wasn't right. Her mother was doing this. She was eerily reminded of how Karga'te's awareness of the effect repelled it a little.

"Mom, stop," she whispered.

Her mother gave her a shushing sound and held her closer. "~We will survive, all you need to worry about is staying close to me. ~"

When Bakarne wanted to walk back to Ohtremnek, Andrew stepped in the way. The moment she had called her mother, he had realized she was the psychic from her story.

"Answer me!"

Bakarne gave him a harsh look. "True, you are not a human. Your kind will benefit from Jormungandr's reign, so what does it matter to you if it gets out?"

Their kind? What else did her mother know that she wasn't sharing? Bakarne forced her to stop worrying again.

"I was raised a human, with all the ethics and morals of our kind," Andrew said. "I will not let that AI get out and threaten life!" Behind him, Ohtremnek snarled, which made him anxious, but he wouldn't get out of the way.

"If this is so dire, why didn't you tell anyone about it?" she said calmly.

"Mom, can't we please try listening to him?"

Bakarne hesitated just for a bit and Andrew quickly said, "Jormungandr starts a killing spree if too many find out. A few years ago it had control over the water supply and froze it. And those monsters down below? Not so harmless when they're truly woken up. Worst, there are artificial humans walking around here. Your daughter just encountered them. I had no proof, but right now I can save us and a few other people by taking us into the desert."

"I know they're here. That's how I was approached. It is too late to stop Jormungandr."

"It is not. Even aboard that ship, it will still need someone to help it! Don't give it that help! Please!"

A thick draft of wind almost knocked them over. The second yautja ship sheered across the city and collapsed into the nearby hills.

"There are hundreds of bombs inside that ship. The desert won't save you from the explosion. Any minute now, the cyborg will reveal themselves and then the last piece of the puzzle will be in place. The Nirevéh tribe will think they know exactly what goes on, and those bombs will explode. Now, my daughter tells me you are a good person. Why don't you come with us? See whether you can do anything from within?"

Andrew seemed to hesitate, then slowly asked, "I'm feeling _too_ inclined to believe you."

It wasn't the first time he'd encountered psychics, then.

Thoughts happen quicker than they are spoken, and he thought about why Bakarne didn't leave. She was the key player for him, and Jormungandr had an indirect hold over her daughter, while she had a more direct hold over anyone with a mind. Jor had once expressed regret to have lost Andrew, and knew he had skills.

Impulsive decisions were difficult to respond to even as a psychic, because the person one read responds just as quickly.

The gun was out before their reflexes, Andrew had a clear shot at Bakarne's head and the eyes to make it count. She snapped out of life like a broken thread lost its tension, grew limp in Oihana's arms. Both fell to the ground, Oihana momentarily dazed by her head hitting the concrete and she rolled away. Scrambling up, she reached for her mother and her hand landed in a growing pool of blood. Wide open eyes were fixed ahead without saying anything.

"Mom?"

She grabbed her mother's hand, felt the life still in the cells, but there were no more thoughts or feelings.

Another click of the gun made her look up, but it wasn't aimed at her. If Andrew had meant to shoot her, he wouldn't now. Andrew was pinned on Ohtremnek's blades and suspended in the air.

No, this man didn't deserve to die either. When Ohtremnek tossed the man away, thinking he was dead when he wasn't, she said nothing.

He'd just hoped to save the world, and her mother had hoped to only save her child. Right? Her mother had come to get her, but why? Was she saving her? Or was she just afraid she might actually agree? Maybe she didn't want to go alone. She was human, the desert was no option for her no matter what. How would things look for this city if Jormungandr hadn't found a psychic, a mother with a child to manipulate, to give it the edge it needed?

Yautja understood grief, at least, and he knelt down at her side with one large hand on her shoulder.

But time to grief they didn't understand. He lifted her a few seconds later where she would have wanted to stay.

Her mother had never shamed her for crying, but always had offered a sense of stability and security, if not comfort. Perhaps it was time she learned to shut herself up, because the place Ohtremnek was carrying called sorrow a weakness.

**· · · · · · ·**


	15. Liars Everywhere

**· · · · · · ·**

Melanie had her things packed in preparation, already stored in Bakarne's house. Not because she had expected to be leaving the planet any time soon, she just liked to have a few things around now that she frequented the house so much, especially since one just had to step outside to get hopelessly dusty. Frank had nothing to pack, and didn't feel like going home to do so. He might run into his family there. Melanie resolved to borrow him a few things.

Now she thought about it, Jormungandr had probably chosen people with poor family connections because that would reduce the risk of concerned parents being told things they shouldn't hear. She barely knew her parents, knew Frank detested his and Mahad wouldn't miss his father either. Ayo apparently had been kicked out of the house because she'd done something bad. Mahad said he had tried recruiting his sister for the geek squad and she'd declined, so Melanie thought it reasonable that Jormungandr had framed her to destroy the connection with her mother.

While she and Frank sat in the living room, she could see the upper part the crashed enemy ship. A battle surrounded it between the few surviving enemy yautja, the Nirevéh tribe and androids, and part of her wished she could see it. Jormungandr had apparently sent his androids there to complete the simulation and Bakarne was supposed to be around for mental nudges in the right direction. Personally, Melanie thought it was a massive leap of logic to say that the 'evil androids' turned their back on the enemy yautja tribe because they hadn't acted quick enough, but apparently the Nirevéh tribe would believe it because they still had their honor. Something like that. Right now she couldn't ask Bakarne and Jormungandr was too busy installing itself. Besides, now the charade was over, she doubted it would care to answer any question that wouldn't make her help it better.

Soon there was victorious roaring, yautjan hovercrafts and copious looting all around the ship. Once they had the parts they needed, it would only be a matter of time before they left.

Mahad arrived back about an hour after the battle ended, during which Frank hadn't moved from his spot and Melanie had taken to reading.

Ayo turned out to be another teenager, no more than two years older than Mahad and just as dark as him. The moment she stepped in, she seemed to own the room. Her eyes looked on an anxious young yautja who was hanging out of the windowsill, watching the battle. For a few seconds she looked him over, then her eyes narrowed. The yautja for his part ignored her entirely.

"If the city hadn't lost power and I hadn't seen the spaceship, I'd think it was a prank, Mahad. Your aliens _wear fishnets_?"

He sighed. "Yes, they wear fishnets."

Ayo then looked over at her and Frank with skeptic eyes. Frank muttered a nervous hello, and with equal stiffness she said, "Pleasure to meat you."

It wasn't a pleasure at all, judging by that tone, and Melanie couldn't blame her. Ayo and Mahad remained standing near the door and started arguing viciously about something. Melanie only caught a few words. " ... told you not to get invo ... couldn't get _mundane_ trouble? ... did what I thought was best ... told you already, Ayo ..."

Frank was threatening to start hyperventilating, so she patted him on the back a bit. It didn't really help him, but her own nerves got a little steadier in the repetitive movement.

Carly and Jarrod appeared next, both carrying bags stuffed to the brink. Unlike the siblings, these two had hardened faces and calculated movements. She heard them whisper something about former friends, once, but for the most part they were quiet.

It was running close to evening and the yautja came to bring them aboard the ship. There was no word of Bakarne, Oihana and Zhib, and when Melanie asked the hunter escorting them, he was as silent as Jormungandr. She couldn't escape the feeling of inferiority that everything around her forced on her.

And nothing did that more thoroughly when she arrived the massive Nirevéh ship.

They'd placed them atop a hovering platform, along the the crocodile carcasses, so they had a panorama view. The ship was streamlined and full of round forms, yet still had a sharp, angular look with the blade like form. It was already hovering in the air, clearly not requiring the massive launch power of human crafts. It also differed from the other ship in its more tribal look. The outsides were engraved with lines and symbols, sometimes even a scene depicting a hunt or what she presumed was a good or folk hero. In the shadow of this, she felt like she didn't matter at all. Technically, she really didn't.

The ship's insides were dark and filled with a low fog, orange lights only around to even the temperature. Frank almost immediately had trouble breathing, so she tried getting him calm by explaining her best guess about the atmosphere. It probably held more oxygen, but since the yautja could survive in human atmosphere with only putting on their mask regularly, they'd probably do fine on shallow breath.

This prevented her from getting a better look at the hall they had arrived in, and before she got that chance they were ushered into a small passage, quickly, and then into a narrow room with pipes on the wall. A maintenance room. It was clear the yautja weren't too keen on having humans aboard, even if they owed them their life.

Melanie tried not to feel disappointed, but Nra'tex-ne and his dignified behavior had made her believe the other blooded warriors would be similar. That they'd at least get an official expression of gratitude from the elders.

Jormungandr finally found them worthy to be spoken to again. In short sentences, it told them that it had successfully installed itself on the ship. They would stay here during an upcoming celebration in honor of the justice of the yautja gods. They should not expect to be officially acknowledged. They should not look anyone in the eyes and keep their heads low. It wasn't yet sure what it wanted them to do, but they would be needed to circumvent hardware blockages, as before.

Telling them they weren't invited seemed to be only to rub it in to Melanie. Jormungandr might not be benign, but she still hoped it wasn't going to turn out unnecessarily cruel. Its 'necessary' cruelty was already bad enough.

When Ayo read this on her brother's laptop, she almost exploded, but before she even finished her sentence Mahad raised his voice just as loudly. That was unusual for Mahad, but not Melanie's business, so she strategically feigned interest in a nearby pipe.

"You helped the lethal AI get aboard the ship of the lethal aliens! You must be proud as a geek, you've created an old school science fiction movie to live out in real life! Complimentary end of the world included?"

"Well, what were we supposed to do? Heroically defy it and hope to somehow overpower it with our wit? Everything we learned we got from Jormungandr! Oh, maybe we should ask the _lethal aliens for help_!"

Bakarne better show up soon.

The door hissed open not too long after that, when Mahad and Ayo were already calming down. Bakarne didn't come in, only Oihana sitting on Ohtremnek's arm. She looked like she'd been crying, but now there was only a detached blankness on her face.

"Where's Bakarne and Zhib?" Frank asked with a shaky voice.

Through the open door, the sound of the celebration washed in. Drums, deep pipes and roaring, perhaps something like song?

"Maybe they got invited," Ayo said.

"They aren't warriors _either_ ," Melanie said sharply. "Oihana, where are Bakarne and Zhib? What happened?"

Ohtremnek knelt down to set Oihana on the ground, then spoke something in yautja. Almost everyone in the room looked down at their wrist band.

What Melanie read there was very simple, "We ran into an enemy. He killed Bakarne. Zhib was already dead with a robot masquerading as him with a flesh skin."

 _What_?

A shiver ran over her back. When Jormungandr had said robots, she had assumed androids. This sounded awfully like a cyborg. Hell, the bait Jormungandr had gotten them here with hadn't been a lie. No wonder they had two competing clans on their roof.

Ohtremnek said something to Oihana that didn't end up translated, and Oihana gave the barest form of recognition with a small mumble. Mahad was at her side immediately, being the good leader still, and tried to say something assuring. He really shouldn't bother, there's nothing appropriate to say to someone who just lost their sole parent. And actually cared, which she couldn't say for most people in this room. In fact, she found herself utterly uncaring for either her parent's upcoming death or Bakarne's; her cold secrecy had killed any affection Melanie had had for the woman.

Mahad asked Ohtremnek for more details, which the yautja gave with a flavor of aggression, which made Mahad uncomfortable. Melanie thought it was more directed against the man who had killed Bakarne. Ohtremnek had a more curious swing than the usual yautja, but still shared that intense sense of honor, and the way Bakarne had died had been a disgrace. She supposed to someone not familiar with yautja nature, it might actually look like sympathy. Ayo seemed to be falling for that trap right now, given that her expression softened up.

Having an empath around for a few years made one weary of one's own emotions, and every time Oihana bluntly had commented on a small emotion she'd felt, Melanie had found it invasive in her privacy. Still, it had made her aware of dangerous, creeping emotions. Like trusting Kea'chethi more for a dumb reason, or a desire to assume good when reality was something else. Jormungandr itself had thought her the danger of that last one.

After Ohtremnek left, and it was apparent that Oihana was pretty much catatonic and wouldn't be mingling with the conversation, Melanie stood up and said, "I'd like to make one thing very clear. We are just to stay here until the next time the yautja come near a human planet, and we can't forget that the reason they'll be doing that."

"Your point?" Ayo asked.

"First, I'd like you in particular to understand that we're not idiots. We've been ignorant, but we understand better what situation we are in, and yelling at Mahad won't make things better. Second, I'd like all of us to understand that we're caught between two evils and we cannot afford to forget that. No Stockholm Syndromes, okay?"

"Hold it ... Stockholm Syndrome? What exactly is the reason they'll be going near human planets?" Ayo asked, casting a glance at Mahad.

"I was getting to that. Did you ever hear those rumors about alien trophy hunters?"

"No, I was staying the hell away from cyberspace, remember?"

"These aliens hunt prey that they deem worthy, this includes sapient lifeforms. Humans. They came to this city for another reason, but they're fine with picking off a group of criminals or space marines," Melanie said. "They're a very brutal society, and we're almost certainly going to be in a situation where our subconscious wants to shrink our world to cope. For yautja, don't assume kindness when you could assume honor."

Ayo looked at her with utter horror. "How are we supposed to live with ..."

"Extraterrestrial serial killers? Given this room, I doubt we'll be living _with_ them," Jarrod said.

"And you are?" Ayo asked harshly. "Aside of what my brother told me of your roles in this, I know nothing."

"Oh, look, we're noticed. Carly Markens, scum from the sewers. Same for Jarrod here."

"You two were of the mob?"

"Not quite. We were jacks of all trades. Smuggling, theft, illegal weaponry, you name it, we did it. Sometimes the mob hired us," Carly said, taking her strangle wire and spanning it between her hands.

"You'll fit in here, I suppose."

Both Jarrod and Carly looked like they'd been spit in the face. "Hey. For the record, I kill if I need to, and _only_ if I need to. These monsters just kill for sport and I _haven't_ forgotten that Nra'tex-ne tried to kill me, nor that he only felt bad over killing his own."

"He could have ignored us and killed you for a trophy," Mahad said.

"It's still racist. She was far less of a threat than two enemy hunters," Jarrod said.

"Speciesist," Frank muttered.

"Hm?"

"We're not just different races, we're different species. They're speciesist," Frank said.

"Speciesist, whatever. Just don't equate us with them. I've never killed anyone because they were inconvenient and justified it cause they weren't of my evolutionary branch. Let alone did I kill for fun," Carly said.

Ayo held up her hands. "Alright, I take it back."

"Look, we're going to have to stick together if we're to survive this," Mahad said solemnly. "From now on, the past won't matter. Whether we helped Jormungandr or you were a criminal, none of it should matter. Can we agree to work together?"

"Yeah," Frank said through a hoarse throat. "I'm all for it."

"I agree," Melanie said. "As humans we have to stick together." For herself, that meant trying not to be creeped out by Oihana or taking offense at Carly and Jarrod's past. She could start by not being bothered by the latter two replying with only nonchalant shrugs, Jarrod saying, "It's not like we have much of a choice."

Ayo's shoulder dropped and she breathed out heavily. "No choice indeed. Alright. I'll do my best."

"Excellent. Now, I suggest we ask Jormungandr for anything he can tell us about their customs, and we study as much as possible," Mahad said. "Learning to deal with their —"

He got no further, because right then, Oihana spasmed. A strangled scream came from her wide open mouth and once, twice, her arms grabbed at the tin air. Then she curled into a ball, screaming once more before laying still, eyes wide open and rapidly breathing.

Ayo took a step back and even Melanie startled, despite having a good guess what was happening. Jarrod however knelt down and picked her up. "Hey, kid, you okay?"

"What's wrong with her?" Ayo asked with a panicked note.

"She's an empath," Mahad said. "My best guess is ... she just felt everyone in the city die."

"Jarrod, give her some space," Melanie said. "You went to say goodbye, didn't you?"

"They really did it?" Ayo whispered, all her previous fire lost.

"Jormungandr has them believing there's an honorless synthetic organization that knows all about yautja technology," Mahad said, as if that had been the point of the question. A more honest answer would have been that, yes, the yautja's concept of honor only was about direct violence.

Jarrod was hesitant to put the girl down till Carly handed him her coat and a clutter of clothes, which he positioned for Oihana to sleep on.

"Bakarne lied when said that bomb wasn't painful, didn't she?" Carly asked quietly.

Melanie sat back down and said, "She did, about that and other things. We've got to make sure we don't start lying as well. Especially not to ourselves."

**· · · · · · ·**


	16. Pity Projects

**· · · · · · ·**

The ship of the Nireveh tribe entered space and only left behind ashes, as far as they knew. Repairs hadn't exactly completed yet, but they were eager to get off that accursed planet, and Nra'tex-ne himself was eager to step out of the elder council room.

He had lost some earned rights, but in the end he had been forgiven. This tribe would live, their name not stained by lies. What was the loss of a little honor, which he was sure he would regain, in face of that?

Those who met him in the passages gave him dignified nods as acknowledgment, a few clasped his shoulder while others just shook their head dismissively, the latter a minority. With the scent of blood and roasting meat filling the upper halls and the pit, it was no wonder the tribe took his association with a prey species so easily. None the least because those crocodiles had been unique and interesting to fight. The other clan had been getting low on food as well, apparently some madman had burned it earlier, but what they'd gotten from below the city fed them well enough. Repairs were still being made, but soon they'd be able to escape the gravity of the planet.

Karga'te and his two friends were already in the kehrite, where the center ring had been cleared of the usual dust and dried blood to cut up five of the carcasses; head and spine already claimed by their killers, off course. Fires had been started around them and spears were used for some old fashioned roasting. There was a kitchen, off course, but after so long on stored food no one had patience for that.

Nra'tex-ne's rank permitted him to reside at higher levels, but in warmth of recent events he felt it was more appropriate he'd spend the celebration with his accomplices. He found Karga'te and Ghuran at the center fire, raving about their adventure and taking a share of the meat well beyond what they'd killed. For once, Karga'te was the one to hand Nra'tex-ne a share of his meat, instead of the other way around.

Nra'tex-ne sat down and looked around for Ohtremnek. He spotted him at a far part of the hall. He did have food, and none were trying to take it, so Nra'tex-ne guessed he was there by choice. The Chuiyeminde Tchea house, from which he came, always had a tendency towards silence.

Ghuran was in the middle of giving an exaggerated version of their encounter with the enemy tribe, which somehow painted Karga'te's murder of them as a perfect necessity. Ghuran gave himself quite the credit too.

"And then Karga'te threw him back against the wall and the fool didn't move out of the way, thought he could get the upper hand on a charging yautja. Karga'te had his arm on his wristblades before he knew it!"

Ghuran had never been the most insightful in visualizing any battle strategy he wasn't actually executing.

"Why would a blooded hunter be so stupid as to expose his upper arm? You couldn't have pierced through his arm guards," someone wisely asked.

Nra'tex-ne almost hoped the bluff would be called, but Karga'te stood up. Nra'tex-ne wanted to stop him, but Karga'te cast his brother a defiant glance, then swallowed the meat he'd been chewing on and said, "Oh, he wasn't that kind of stupid. I was smarter. I just feigned to the other side, and he didn't have enough room between himself, the wall, and some splintery piece of human furniture to move his other arm out of the way quick enough."

The roaring cheers and laughter as Karga'te continued the story without ever correcting Ghuran's embellishments felt like blasphemy. Killing another yautja was _nothing_ to brag about. Nra'tex-ne wished to see shame in his brother, some chance he might stand before the Black Warrior once he died and she would forgive his transgression so he could pass to the halls of the honored. He saw nothing to give him hope, but Karga'te was still young. Perhaps he would grow older and learn.

Nra'tex-ne wasn't that hungry anymore, so he decided to check up on the humans before he himself did anything disastrous like being honest.

Honored gods, when had honesty become dangerous?

When he stood up and prepared to leave, some of the hunters asked why already, didn't he have an interesting story? He had killed one of those crocodiles while wounded and they were eager to know about it. Knowing he couldn't stand another lying word, he told them a partial truth.

"Some other time. I've yet to actually clean that skull, I'll share the story once I have the skull ready to prove it," he said, which was met with dissapointed growls.

On the way out, he stopped before Ohtremnek. "I'm going to check up on the humans. Come along, in case I can't figure out those blasted computers we need to talk to them."

Ohtremnek followed without a word, still working down the last of his food. Nra'tex-ne visited the armory to retrieve his helmet. Fortunately, the technician had finished downloading what he had recorded, recharged the dying batteries and were ready to hand it back. He was also offered some extra leg armor, to help support his still injured leg until better medicine was available again. Seeing no need for an arrogant denial of pain, Nra'tex-ne accepted the offer.

After securing the armor, he made his way down the hall, deflecting a few more questions and well natured mocks of his tactics. He'd have humored them if he'd felt better, but the attitude of his brother weighed heavy on his mind.

Ohtremnek led him several levels down, into the maintenance area. Nra'tex-ne was a little taken aback that the leaders had decided to put them there, so far out of sight. True, most of them weren't warriors, but they did owe them. Surely they'd honor an agreement in a better way?

"Why are they down here?"

"Their matriarch is dead. Bakarne. I don't understand what exactly happened and Oihana is in shock, so she can't explain yet, but a human with a rather strange bio signature showed up and tried to talk to them. Then randomly, he killed Bakarne. So, I killed him."

Nra'tex-ne was getting used to inexplicable things happening on this planet, but that was still a blow. Bakarne had been the balancing factor in the group, and her loss was regrettable. It also worried him because of what would happen to the other humans now. The matriarchs had apparently interpreted Bakarne as the instigator of the pact, when in actuality it had been the children who had done the translation work and negotiations. If the humans were just here to honor a word to a deceased female, without any respect for they themselves, it would make their stay all the harder.

They'd been put in an atmosphere control room, not even a proper residence. He couldn't quite explain this in any way as dignified, but at least they wouldn't be wandering around unprotected. When he entered, he greeted them in his own language. They'd have to learn it, even if their translator device did not run out of power or was claimed by the technicians.

Mahad echoed the greeting and stood up, but the others stayed sitting on the ground. The smallest seemed to be asleep, the one named Frank had trouble breathing and the new female, Mahad's sister apparently, was very skittish and tense.

That Mahad seemed to take over leadership in Bakarne's absence somehow rubbed him the wrong way. He'd adjusted to their customs, now they were with the yautja, they'd have to adjust to their protocol. A young non warrior had no business taking leadership when there was an elder warrior present within the pack. However, Carly made no move to take on her duties.

He didn't wait for a translation of what Mahad said, took the computer from his hands and handed it to Ohtremnek. When Mahad made a grab for it, he shoved him back.

At this, Carly finally decided to stand up. He had no idea what those loud words meant, but he recognized the tone. She was utterly pissed off.

He was almost two heads taller than her, but she was aggressive and had the build and posture of an adult rather than a child of that size. He took a step back and immediately felt ridiculous. Female, yes, but not yautja. Humans did not even have the same gender roles nor size.

Ohtremnek had his helmet hooked up with the computer, and a translation of her words flickered into Nra'tex-ne's view. "... did to offend you, but it's not gonna change if you don't explain it, you ass."

"It was not his place to take leadership," Nra'tex-ne said. She looked down at her wristband and rolled her eyes, a silent way to say she thought it was ridiculous.

"If you are to live with us, you are to follow our customs. A less tolerant warrior would have been harsher in—"

"A _smart_ warrior would have remembered to _just say so_ instead of shoving people."

"You'll have to get used to a lot more than just shoving. Our society has no room for either weaklings or slow learners."

"Ah, I was already wondering when your superiority complex was going to shine through. No more offering tea now you don't _need_ anything from us, is it?"

"If you have a problem with our ways already, you might have been better off staying down there," he snarled.

"No, I'm having a problem with you expecting we are _too stupid_ to learn without you just telling us what to do differently."

"Alright. Then I will say it. _You_ are the eldest female warrior of your pack, _you_ will be held responsible for the behavior of the other humans. Maybe it works different in your culture, but the my people won't care. Neither I nor they will humor your honorless culture."

When she read the translation, she stared for a very long time at the thing. "Dammit."

He couldn't tell what she swore at, the responsibility (was she lazy?) or the abandonment of their culture (he hadn't gotten the impression she cared much for it).

"Maybe you can do the same and tell me if we do something you consider offensive," he added in a lower voice.

"No, it's okay. As least you took it a notch down from _kill now, talk never_." She turned around and plopped down against the wall with what seemed a deliberate lack of grace. Knowing how she could move, he was pretty sure she intended to mock him.

"Carly —"

"You can talk to Mahad. I appoint him my officer of culture and science," she said, gesturing behind Nra'tex-ne. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Ohtremnek was holding out the computer for Mahad to type something on.

He growled deeply and felt like he'd been put in place yet again. Fine. He left the tiny room and told Ohtremnek to go over the rules with them.

"Already on it," Ohtremnek said with a chuckle.

He stormed down a few passages before calming down.

Carly's attitude was annoying, but truth be said, he'd be annoyed too if they'd stuffed him in a tiny room in their house, but ... Truth be said he just had a great day that had been ruined. Karga'te was probably going to join the fallen gods and _like_ it. He wasn't dealing with that very maturely. Mahad hadn't even done anything to really offend him.

He turned back, but found that the room was empty. Down the passage he heard Ohtremnek talk, accompanied by footsteps. When Nra'tex-ne caught up, Ohtremnek said he was taking them to the stasis room early, in case they would have to make adjustment for the humans. There apparently was too much oxygen in the air for them. The young yautja carried the child on his arm again, she seemed to be waking up now. There was a whiff of worry around Ohtremnek, perhaps he thought she'd caught a disease? That attitude was a good sign, if his clan wanted to have a strong future merging into the Nirevéh tribe.

"Also, Carly says she'll do the pack leader thing, but she's not going to stop leaving things to younger or male people if they happen to be smarter about something."

"I can deal with that. I hope the others will."

"Oh, but you're really good at making stubborn people get along with the rest of the tribe," Ohtremnek said with a thrill. "Granted, you can't make them _stop_ being all that stubborn."

He was about to rebuke that when he realized Ohtremnek was right. Karga'te was still as stubborn as ever, that was the problem. Most he'd done was get Meidache to tolerate him. Well, if his day hadn't been ruined enough already, now he was left with the thought that perhaps he'd gone all wrong about raising Karga'te to be a hunter.

He didn't get much further thought about that though, because just outside the stasis chamber he met a warrior who told him how regrettable it was he couldn't claim skulls of any of the humans. According to Ghuran, that tall female had quite the warrior in her. Nra'tex-ne chose to ignore the remark, carefully keeping his anger inside. Allies were not discussed as potential trophies anymore than killing a yautja was worth bragging about.

Most of the upper stasis chamber was still empty. Nra'tex-ne approached the supervisor to explain why Ohtremnek would have to be here — he'd be able to adjust the machines best since he was rather familiar with humans now — and assured him that yes, he wanted to humans in stasis here. He'd rather not put them anywhere to wake up amidst irritable unblooded who'd be dangerously curious.

The stasis hall was humming softly and not very warm, but the parts from the enemy ship was all in place. Everything should be functional for safe use, and Ohtremnek eagerly threw himself on making adjustments. Off course, their chosen set was an unused pair at the end of the hall, far from where the honored warriors would be entering cold sleep.

The pods was humming softly, charging up on the newfound energy source that had been claimed from the enemy ship. Each was about the size of a female yautja wide with extra space for if she had children, and so it could contain two males if they curled up.

"Pods? Looks more like pools," Melanie said wearily. "Can't we drown by accident?"

Nra'tex-ne tried recalling what human cryo pods looked like from that one time he'd hunted aboard a human space ship. Killing a barely functional human wasn't true sport, yet one might miss out good prey if they passed over one that appeared unstable, so the homeworld had included details about their cold sleep in the prey archives. Cryogeniced humans were to be given at least a few hours to regain their footing.

No wonder they were confused when confronted with the superior yautja method. His people employed a thick liquid that allowed the body to stay afloat and take on a position more natural for long rest, a principle built on how children stayed in the womb. Humans had built their principle of staying in bed, which caused all sorts of problems for the body.

The group was really reluctant to get undressed, especially after being told they were going to get just two pods, and they could fit easily if they just curled up. They decided to separate by gender, and then oddly enough turned their backs on each other when undressing.

He did a double take when he saw the males and had to keep from laughing. A few hunters that just entered didn't bother to restrain themselves, filling the room with a low thrill. At least nobody broke into full laughter. Human males apparently had non-retractable sexual organs. Nra'tex-ne was rather confused as this, it seemed so impractical. Their species clearly had some evolving left to do.

All the humans seemed ashamed of this state, for some reason. He didn't understand. Yautja did tend to cover up their nether regions too, but this was more for practical reasons than anything else. For some uncontrolled idiots, trying to castrate a rival in battle was all too tempting. Or just a well placed kick too could hurt to a deliberating degree; both genders had a nervous center there. Humans didn't appear to be that volatile in their free time and nobody here was threatening them.

Now he thought about it, even in their home humans went covered up at all times. Nudity apparently was some sort of social taboo. Bizarre, but not their fault, and there was nothing funny about being forced into a socially awkward situation. Even if some childish part of his insisted it all was really, really hilarious, and unhelpfully noted that females on the other hand were rather alike to his kind.

In fact, on the broad scale humans were very alike to yautja. He had seen a thousand species across many worlds, yet humans were the only ones resembling yautja so closely. It was already rare to find creature that were both bipedal _and_ had eyes looking straight ahead, if they had eyes at all. They even had hair on the backs of their head, albeit much thinner and also on the top. They even communicated by sound and on the same wave length.

"Okay, how about we just get in there now?" Carly said. "They're staring and that gets on my nerves."

"Are we really sure it's safe?" Frank asked, hunched on the ground.

"About to find out," Carly said and made a splash as she jumped in the goo. She could have just stepped in, but that would have been too compliant for her, Nra'tex-ne reckoned. For a moment she looked distressed as she breathed in, but then stuck her thumb up at the others and curled up. Jarrod then entered the second pod, the rest following more hesitantly. Just like unblooded and children who were told to enter for the first time.

It had to be possible for them to come to understand the nature of honor, if they were so similar and could understand so much other advanced concepts. Humans might become something more than simple prey if they would learn to walk the Path.

The homeworld nor his tribe were really concerned with this, but to him it seemed inevitable. It was going to be an touchy future, where humans would come to realize their pursuit of abstract power wasn't nearly as satisfying as the pursuit of real power, only to find the other Hunters to have never given them the chance to evolve. True, right now it didn't seem useful to get them to change their ways. The majority of humans were savages and weaklings, far from the Path. But one could never really get to know their potential if they weren't given a chance. He had an inkling that many wouldn't want to, they were such interesting, unpredictable prey.

Ohtremnek closed the hatch after them, made a few adjustments to the setting while looking at the monitor, then excused himself quickly. He left the stasis hall through a side door, so he wouldn't offend any of the warriors with his presence. More of those had started coming in, and Nra'tex-ne noticed Meidache was amongst them.

He bowed his head briefly as she approached him.

"All of them fit?" she asked while looking down.

"Mostly," Nra'tex-ne said. Even the tallest amongst them, Carly and Jarrod, barely reached half Meidache's height. Still, if there had been two more humans, they'd have needed three.

"They only brought one new one in, then. Good. You'd have a harder time explaining this if a whole flock of random humans were aboard here. Still, a pity their matriarch is gone."

"Indeed. I had been interested in hearing her opinion on our world. A spirit speaker would have a lot of interesting things to say."

She tilted her head at him. "You're doing it again."

"What?"

"I saw you when I entered, you had that deep thought look. This isn't like your brother and Kea'chethi. They're a _prey_ species, Nra'tex-ne. Don't get attached. It won't be long before someone devises a reason to get rid of them, if they don't provide one themselves."

"They don't need to be seen as prey. They're as intelligent as we are, and that one," he said while pointing at the curled up Carly, "can at least hold her own in a fight."

"You and your pity projects. I just know I'll be looking at a request for new students coming from you, citing one of their names."

Well, he hadn't quite been thinking that small, too busy with glorious ideas for the future, but yes, that might be a step in the right direction.

"So what are their names anyway? Then at least I'll look less like a fool when presenting your dumb request to my fellows."

He pointed at the largest female. "Carly, she is the eldest female now that Bakarne is gone. Mahad, the eldest male. Ayo, his sister. Ja'rod, brother of Karli. I think. Melanie, beta female. Frank, the lowest male. Oihana, the youngest. Her mother is the human ally who died."

"Any of them matured yet?"

"Only Carly and Ja'rod, I think. I gathered something about the others still having lived with parents."

She sighed and thought for a while. He was wise enough not to interrupt her.

"You might want to see first whether any of your wives are interested in a servant."

"Assuming they'll still want me after this disgrace," he with a soft clatter.

"You have many successful hunts in your past, the disgrace you suffered today was not one of poor judgment or failing strength."

"It was one of disobedience."

"A singular case, brother. They'll have you hear about it, but I would be surprised if they'd discard you so easily. If they were like that, they'd have dropped you as soon as you pulled a certain nuisance out of the servant ranks," she said, adding her telltale growl when referring to Karga'te. "Not that he's missed there. Your humans are probably going to be more useful than him given their technological skills."

He hoped so. If he could just introduce at least one of them to the Path ...

**· · · · · · ·**


	17. Five Pyramids

**· · · · · · ·**

Oihana was the first to wake up, torn from sleep by extrasensory sight. There was a city of monsters not too far away, closing in. In her disorientation, she barely knew where she was.

Everyone in Ghilsaer had burned. Just a second or two, three. But there had been thousands burning.

Her mother was dead and she could have lived if not for Andrew.

She could not hate the man, because he was afraid of what Jormungandr could do, and he was right to be so. Instead, she hated Jormungandr, and she hated the city of monsters.

The goo around her was stiff, but as it became warmer, it was easier to move. She crawled upward, her hands coming to a transparent covering. She started inhaling the fluid now, and waited for someone to open it. Almost everyone outside was gone already, ... How had she gotten here?

There was some lingering knowledge of being brought here by Ohtremnek ... oh, he'd decided to take them to stasis early after Mahad had explained him the nature of her blackout. He'd thought it would help if she wasn't aware anymore, and he'd thought well. They were far from Ghilsaer's resonance now, and she didn't feel anything of it. Not that the replacement city was much better.

Someone saw her hands move below the lid and curiously approached, thinking she was awake too early. Through the glass Oihana saw a yellow yautja with complimentary brown in her stripes and crest, like her brothers, though she was closer to the reddish tint of Nra'tex-ne than to Karga'te's banana yellow. Her name was Meidache, and the curiosity she had at her early waking was the most she felt towards the humans. There was tired resignation all about her, tired of her brother's whims. Oihana could have died or broken out in water ballet, and Meidache wouldn't have done more than proverbially roll her eyes.

She opened the lid, grabbed a nearby mask to read her vitals and found nothing out of the ordinary. While that made her a little more curious, it wasn't enough to keep her attention for long. She pointed at Oihana's clothes, opened the other pod and walked off. To her, humans were just another little nuisance to add to her life, most of all she just wanted back to her children and relax. Oihana would like to go back to her mother, and couldn't even blame the yautja for her inability to do so. She forced back an irrational desire to make Meidache feel what it was like to lose someone, reminding herself that the less knew about her powers, the better. Her mother had always urged secrecy for a good reason.

Oihana climbed out of the pod and looked around quickly. The others were just barely waking, both humans and yautja. Her clothes lay where she put them, but she thought it better to dry off first. There were towels in a shelf aside of the pods, just reachable from the lowered basin before them. A grown hunter could easily reach aside, but she really needed to stretch if she didn't want to step out and get goo on the walking floor.

The towels were unwieldy and huge for her, she could hide under it entirely. If the material hadn't been so coarse — it was for the rough yautja skin — she could have just curled up and rolled in it to get dry.

Ayo stepped out soon after her, then Mahad. She made sure to pull out some extra towels for them, which they barely registered as they awed at how much they didn't have cold sleep after effects. Here Ayo's scientific curiosity also peeked through, there was a moment where she forgot she was angry with her brother as they eagerly whispered to each other about the science behind it all.

Oihana disappeared under the towel with her clothes. When she emerged again, Jarrod and Carly had gotten out and had claimed towels of their own, while Ayo and Mahad were getting dressed. Melanie was already awake, but more cautious since she'd been in cryo before and couldn't quite belief there really were none of the after effects. Mahad helped Frank get out, then turned to Oihana.

"How are you doing?" he asked softly.

"I don't know," she whispered. "I've never been to a place with so many violent ..."

"Monsters? I know, but they're why we live. Please try to overcome it, I promise I'll do my best to get us back to our world."

She didn't mind monsters. They were monsters themselves, if Andrew was to be believed, and crocodiles were also capable of violence. But neither her friends nor the crocodiles had the mind to glorify violence. No. So many _irrationally_ violent _persons_.

Meidache was still in the hall, taking her time to go over statistics, life stats and performance of the hunters. While she as a high ranked female wasn't required to do this, it was her self assigned duty. Oihana curiously looked a little further at her mind, but wasn't sharp enough to decipher any details Meidache wasn't actively processing. She did find out why the hall was empty.

"She woke us last because she felt our presence would offend the elders," Oihana said.

"Nra'tex-ne isn't around? Can't be a good sign," Melanie said as she looked around.

"Let me just ask her," Mahad said, grabbing his laptop and typing out his question. He jogged over to Meidache at the other end of the hall, and Oihana noticed that while outwardly Meidache ignored him, she was offended and just barely tolerated his transgression.

Mahad clumsily tried reading the question in yautjan. Oihana ran a little towards him but didn't want to get too close.

"Mahad, don't! You're an unblooded male asking a high ranked female for a male of lower rank! Don't!"

Meidache straightened her back and set two fingers on Mahad's head, shoving him back. He tumbled a few steps, but remained on his feet. It was much like she'd reprimand a child half his age, she rather thought of humans as frail and pathetic. She continued her work and didn't answer, while an embarrassed Mahad walked back.

Oihana tugged his sleeve. "I don't think Nra'tex-ne is here yet. I caught some memories just a second ago, he left an an earlier solar system to get some more trophies.

"Great. Our first day in monster land, and the grand total of monsters who wouldn't like us dead is not there to introduce us," Carly said.

"Eh, I think Otter at least likes us," Mahad said. "Also, Carly, try not to say those things aloud. Some more travel happy hunters may know our language."

Jarrod zipped his mouth. "Got it," he mumbled. Melanie managed a chuckle, muffled by the shirt she was pulling over her head at the moment.

Meidache took her time finishing her work while the humans hung around, waiting. Oihana used the time to sharpen her orientation. She had had years to get familiar with Ghilsaer and accustomed to its energy. Right now they were still in space, but closing in on the planet that would be their home. It was thick and alive down there, definitely not a desert. All throughout the ship were yautja eager to get home, it was like a thick, syrupy toxic.

She didn't realize she was in a trance until Mahad shook her shoulder. "Oihana, snap out of it!"

"Already?" Melanie asked. "Are we sure she can handle this place?"

"I'll be okay," she whispered. Sometimes, she lost herself in the middle of all the impressions from the world around her. Living here wasn't going to be easy, but she had to evolve. Her mother had evolved to deal with her life, Oihana knew she could do the same.

When the ship was crossing into the atmosphere of a vivid planet, Meidache finished up and signed the humans to follow her out of the hall. Her paces were massive and she took no effort to slow to a pace they could keep, so they practically had to run after her. They went like this all the way to the hull, and Meidache only slowed down as she reached a window. Oihana squeezed her eyes against the bright light that poured in.

Meidache made a gesture to them as a group, then pointed at the floor. They were to wait here. There was a hint of throw away consideration, only in that it took no effort from her, that she left them by a window. Mostly just for getting their eyes used to the light.

"Well, the view sure is epic," Carly said.

A gray slope of rough rock filled the window, the only indent in it was a little to the left and up, perhaps a window.

"If they see in heat, why do they have glass windows and colorful armor? It's not like they can see the stars or colors," Ayo asked.

Nobody answered, but Oihana concentrated to find out by laying her hands on the window. In the past, plenty had looked out here.

The yautja actually did see colors, but their brains discarded the information in favor of the infrared; maybe they had a membrane over their eyes? She told the others so, and Mahad, Frank and Melanie promptly speculated. Off course they had to subconsciously at least be aware of color, otherwise it was ludicrous that they'd ever have evolved to be so strong and efficient when they were practically blind in the warm environment they required to function. Much like how most humans didn't do anything with the cryptochrome in their eyes, but could still react to magnetic perception without really knowing what did it. Intuition, they called it.

There had to be a psychic way to exploit this, Oihana thought.

The door slit open and an unknown yautja stood there, greeting them with a snarl and an invisible but for Oihana very real wave of contempt. They were to follow, and unlike Meidache, this one looked over his shoulder all the time, not having an inch of trust that they wouldn't wander off. It was a sad day when one arrived in a place where _lack_ of attention from a superior was a compliment.

They were led down a small passage to an exit hatch that the hunter barely fit through. It was almost level with the floor, and he jumped out. Carly and Jarrod peeked out first and saw a long distance to the ground.

"Yikes," Jarrod said. "That's at least five meters. Carly and I can handle that, but I think we better try to break your fall from below. Oihana, come over her, you can sit on my back when I jump."

He bent down her for to climb on, and she whispered thanks.

"No problem." He jumped first, follow closely by Carly. They landed on all fours, not entirely painlessly. Oihana sat down her feet on rock so hot she felt it through shoes and within a second, the tropic heat was burning their skin. Inside the ship had been cold in comparison, probably on reserves.

The hunter waited impatiently while the others were caught clumsily by Carly and Jarrod. Frank was last and barely was he on the ground or the hunter for them to follow.

All around them was more rock, covered by the shadow of the ship. To the left and right they saw hints of a grayish blue sky and a touch of living green. The ship was very close to a sloping wall, but as they came closer to the end of the ship they could up. The wall ended in a triangular peek, sharply against a bright sky.

Melanie was the first to look down, her brain quickly assembling everything. The position of the ship, the wide boulevard they were standing on, the closeness of the clouds.

The hunter waited for them to follow into a small passage into the pyramid, but Melanie didn't know what the snarling meant. To her it sounded all the same, and Oihana was copying her amazement just a little bit too much to tell her.

"Guys, come look at this," Melanie said before she'd even reached the shadow's edge of the ship. Mahad followed her first, and the rest didn't want to be left behind.

They stood about halfway up a gigantic pyramid. Low to the pyramid were several more extending boulevards, and massive statues stood around outer stairways. At the foot of the pyramid was a paved set of roads, looking tiny from up here, leading to other pyramids like this one. They saw two, but Oihana picked up that there were five in total. The clouds were low to the peeks of the pyramids, giving the illusion they were truly mountain sized. All around was a thriving rainforest and Oihana desperately wanted to go there.

The hunter roared at them, demanding their attention. He'd caught up and about to grab the nearest human, Ayo, to get them to come along. Ayo moved quicker, darting past him and straight at the door.

"Oihana ..." Mahad said.

"Snapping out of it," she said. It wasn't entirely true, though. There was so much here to know and she was clouding up. Beyond this city of death was a forest brimming with life, details, past, rite ... her brain could handle only so much information before her senses and muscle control started being impaired. She staggered. In a blur, she saw Jarrod's hand reach out and try to grab her, too late. She collapsed forward, hitting her head against the rock.

Jarrod knelt down at her side. "Hey kid, how about I carry you a little longer?"

She gratefully nodded, letting him help her crawl to her feet. In a second she was on his back again and he followed the others into the pyramid.

They were herded through long passages, their guide avoiding any crowded area. All around them was a gloomy darkness, light only coming from the orange heat blooms at the walls. There were a lot less of those here than in the ship. Frank guessed that since the pyramid lacked volatile engines, there was no need to keep a steady temperature. The rock did that on its own. The deeper they went, the more difficult it became to see, and the more thick the fog on the floors became. She breathed only shallowly, but the headache associated with too much oxygen came anyway, both in her and the others.

Mahad and Melanie chose to drive away anxiety by talking and marveling. "They're like what would happen if one handed advanced technology and the knowledge how to operate it, to a primitive culture. The entire process of culling out overt cultural influences was skipped, the progress that the development of intellect and science requires, and so they kept this tribal society transplanted onto a technologically superior world."

Ayo groaned hopelessly. "So we can't expect any advanced laws either?"

Mahad almost asked Oihana, remembered she wasn't her sharp mother and said, "No, I don't think their justice system is going to be quite like ours."

Frank's stomach tightened at that, a sting that Oihana unwillingly copied. Melanie let him lean on her, but she herself wasn't feeling that well either. Mahad and Ayo both were getting unsteady feet. Only Carly and Jarrod did decently.

When they were shoved into a small room and left alone, that was met with relief. Almost everyone slumped to the ground. Oihana tried to focus on them feeling a little okay now, and not everything that seeped through the walls.

Her eyes opened wide as somewhere she got caught in a hunter's memories as he told a friend of how he's killed ... killed something ... didn't know the creature. But it talked. He thought it had begged for mercy. Its skull was on a wall here, along with ten thousands of other dead faces.

They had to wait for nearly two hours until they were fetched. This time it wasn't a hunter but a servant. Yautja, hunter or not, all were rather muscular and didn't seem to lose strength entirely, even when as unchallenged as this one. His was his small, deformed arms that had condemned him as slave. This one had never killed a creature or developed any profound bloodlust, but there were other reasons he unpleasant to be around. The scars affirmed to the others what Oihana felt : slaves were treated horribly here.

The slave led them up a few stairs, into a massive room with a wide window, and left again. Jarrod had carried her, but now he set her down.

The window looked out on the same pyramids they'd seen upon arrival, though the glass had a brown tint to it that kept the worst of the scorching light out. Not that it was any colder here. The window was of extreme interest though, since they felt it was nicer to look at than the female yautja who occupied this room. Only Melanie didn't really care, Oihana noticed, and through her she became aware of the many furs, the gold and the skulls — shouldn't those not have moving eyes? — all across the room. Her vision swam as she looked— Melanie looked? — at a finely carved statue of a good, half emerging from the wall like a specter.

Meidache suddenly was there, surrounded by a swarm of children that ranged from toddler barely reaching her knee to those that could successfully jerk at her arm for attention. She growled tolerantly and pushed them off, though they kept returning. One of the other females chastised her, without much seriousness, about her poor discipline. Meidache replied she didn't want another stuffy one that chose eccentric projects to vent the innate energy of her family, at which the entire group thrilled in laughter.

Once she had successfully sent her children off to play with those of the other females, Meidache dropped into one of the fur chairs and the others joined her. The chairs were more like massive beanbags — Carly thought this was funny for some reason — and were arranged in a circle at the center of the room. They'd been told what was going on, were here to make a decision, and they weren't surprised Nra'tex-ne had another project. They spoke to each other about what was to happen, almost like having an afternoon tea party. Except there was raw meat instead of cookies.

Their facial expressions were eerily alike with humans, as far as their eyes were concerned. Dropped brows were accompanied by snarls and growls, happy ones with raised brows and clattering mandibles. None of these expressions was aimed at the humans though. This was going to be a theme, there was no room in yautja society for humans as _people_. Since they were not prey, they were objects. Hopefully, they'd be _useful_ objects.

"So, geeks, anything you can tell us already?" Carly whispered, leaning towards Mahad. He was staring at his computer, trying to make sense of the rough translations that were swung at him. Without Jormungandr to guide the translations, the results were a lot more shaky.

"They take the female dominance thing very serious," Mahad said. "These ladies are in charge of what will happen to us. So far, they're humoring Nra'tex-ne by tolerating us, I think. They won't make a definite decision till he's back."

"This reverse sexism?" Jarrod asked.

"No, it's not a reverse of sexism as _we_ know it. They're not painting the males as inherently weak and too incompetent, and they do have input in matters. In fact, it's a pretty big deal for everyone that they _are_ strong and competent enough to get to procreate. It's ... oh crap," Mahad said, a strained expression coming to his face.

"What?"

"They decided ... ehm ... Ayo, listen—"

Carly grabbed Oihana by the shoulder. "What's going on?"

"They don't want us to breed. They're going to separate us," she muttered.

Carly's eyes shot up to Jarrod, and Oihana couldn't escape the sense of despair anymore. These two had already lost their family, now they'd lose each other. She really wanted to say something encouraging, but she couldn't unfreeze herself. She just sat down, pulled up her knees and crossed her arms around them.

Carly took a few step forwards and said, "No! Don't separate us, me and Jarrod are family! We're not going to do anything together!"

The collective of females turned to her, glaring, offended at her trespassing. A fury of clattering and growling erupted, but Carly was furious herself and didn't back down. That was dangerous, and Oihana tried having her understand. She couldn't get through.

"They don't think that's a good enough reason to assume you won't do anything with each other. They have no evidence you grew up together, or that you are actually blood related. Our word means nothing," Mahad said.

"But we were honest about getting your people a food source, weren't we?" Carly said, still looking at the pack.

Meidache tapped her wrist, and Carly looked down.

"You did that only to get yourself out of a tricky situation. Human society thrives on lies and your species is widely known as dishonorable and sick."

Carly gritted her teeth and stopped herself from swearing. Jarrod wanted to say it was going to be okay, but wasn't sure whether speaking out of turn, now they were under scrutiny, would make the situation worse. Instead, he took Carly by the arm and pulled her back.

The females scowled, but when Meidache leaned back and made a dismissive remark about primitive humans, they followed her suit.

"I'll take in one half. I don't care which one," she said.

"You've already got so much on your hands. I couldn't imagine the bother of being a matriarch to the hunts. We'll take the bigger group, with the rude one," one said.

"Are human children as troublesome as ours?" another asked.

"I gather three of the females are still considered minors, but they're all very quiet. Females aren't dominant in their species."

This elicited a low thrill with a clatter, maybe the equivalent of eye rolling.

She didn't want to feel anymore what went on here, but there was no way to block out all the information. Close by, Frank was caught by a sudden wave of nausea and he collapsed. Oihana didn't mind being dragged along in unconsciousness.

**· · · · · · ·**


	18. Diverting DNA

**· · · · · · ·**

Once more she woke in a strange place, and this time it took her longer to orient herself. She felt ill seven times over. Her limbs were sore, there was a jabbing pain in her stomach and her eyes watered. Sometimes it felt like her skin burned, but at the same time it didn't, and she had a headache, but didn't.

The rough words and clicking didn't mean anything to her, but thought behind it was something like, " _don't worry_ ".

She forced her eyes open and saw Ohtremnek's helmet hover over her, and a dim orange light in a wall to the side. A sting in her arm forced her further awake.

Ohtremnek withdrew the needle and pushed a few drops in his gauntlet. He thought she was ill?

She tried mumbling she wasn't, but no sound came out of her swollen throat.

"Stay still," Melanie said close by. "You're ill. We all are ... Should have figured..." she said, interrupted by a fit of coughing. "Indigenous diseases. Generations on Ghilsaer, no immune system against alien worlds ..."

Ohtremnek read a translation of what she said and launched in an irritated rant on how this was the fault of the other two houses and their carelessness. Clans that had traveled space longer understood the need for disinfection, so valuable prey habitats weren't destroyed by alien diseases that hitched a ride on hunter ships. The other four houses did keep their ships clean, but nobody had thought about what would happen if they put humans straight into this alien ecosystem.

Another yautja voice almost cheerfully chipped in that it wasn't a problem, she could handle it. Kea'chethi. With some difficultly, Oihana pushed herself up on her elbows to have a better look.

In the middle of the room, the glowing yautja sat on the ground with her legs crossed, a large bowl between her knees. She was mixing strong smelling herbs with a stone pestle.

Around her were a very irate Carly, a close to desperate Ayo and a confused Melanie who tried to keep her head clear without success. All leaned against the wall, and with some effort Oihana could assign certain symptoms she felt to some of them. It was still hard to tell how much really was her own and how much she copied, but Melanie was the one with burning skin, everyone had pain in their stomach, Carly and Jarrod were sore, and Frank was the one with the worst headache. Ayo and Mahad were generally just very nauseas, though she couldn't be sure about Mahad, since he wasn't here.

She sought for the boys, but they weren't anywhere close. The mass of invisible stimuli all around couldn't be waded through without her mother as guide, so she found out the old fashioned way.

"Where are ... everyone?" she muttered as she tried sitting up further; Ohtremnek put a hand behind her back to help before going back to his analysis.

"We are in what's apparently the servant quarters below the family that Tex belongs to," Carly said with a hoarse voice. "Meidache took the guys to her quarters."

Ohtremnek got the results from her blood sample and told something to Kea'chethi that was too indistinct for Oihana to understand. Kea'chethi immediately grabbed a different set of herbs, shoving aside a set of jars she'd previously used. The new ones were in a wide cloth with little pockets. As she worked, Oihana caught some of her professional concern, like that in world weary doctors who dealt with a steady stream of patients and couldn't afford to care much.

On Ohtremnek's part, his interest in their health was fueled by scientific curiosity. If the humans died, if she died, where would he get more interesting subjects, more spirit speakers?

Kea'chethi finished her concoction and used a spoon to pour it into smaller bowls, which she handed out. Carly was the only who could get up, she offered to try it first. She made a face at the smell and quickly swallowed it. It made her feel no better, rather, it gave her a burning throat and she almost threw up. Kea wasn't surprised at the response, but a little disappointed when it didn't subside as quickly as she had hoped.

Carly sat down and waited for an effect, while Kea tried convincing the others to try it as well, without success. Ayo tried getting a response from her wrist band, but even of Jormungandr could transmit to them from the ship, it wasn't likely it would directly do so at risk of someone discover it. The wristbands had a special access code and frequency, but who knew what technology existed here, or didn't exist, that rendered it moot.

They waited for about half an hour, but when Carly only reported a worsening condition, confirmed by Ohtremnek's scan of her vitals, Kea gave up. She knew a great number of medicine that she could conjure from rainforest plants, but she'd never had a chance to try it on anything but yautja. Since none of the advanced medicine would be provided by this house, and they couldn't count of the priests to do anything either, Kea suggested Ohtremnek take one of them to his pyramid. There was a secret path she could show him, where he'd not likely run into anyone to delay him. She'd stay to wait for possible delayed results, but he better be back by night.

Ohtremnek eagerly accepted that suggestion, though insisted Kea ask for permission from the household supervisor. She reluctantly did so, got a barked reply that the supervising servant didn't give a crap, and for Ohtremnek that was enough permission. He picked up Oihana, saying she was easiest to transport, and off they were.

Below the living quarters of the honored hunters and the breeding females was a network of tunnels and rooms where the disgraced servants lived. They were those born weak, and those who lost their honor in a way not severe enough for exile. To them, the lowest of tasks were assigned, so lowly that not even the youth in the kehrite should have to do it. They lived in this dark, cold place far from eyes that could be offended by them, not even allowed to walk the same floors save for when called. Kea had grown up here and knew which ways were less popular — the coldest — so they could leave the pyramid without running into anyone dangerous. Some of the disgraced were here because they weren't mentally sound, and they might kill if they ran into something weaker.

Still, Oihana liked that they'd be living here rather than in the more 'honorable' quarters. There weren't any dead things on the walls here.

They emerged into the outside heat through a hatch in the ground, a dozen or so meters from the al elevated road that circle the pyramid. There was shrubbery all around and not too far off they could hear children playing in the undergrowth. Kea turned back at once, while used his free arm to conjure up a three dimensional map from his gauntlet.

He said something that she didn't understand, but this time there was reception in her wrist band. Jormungandr translated for her that it might take a while since they'd have to walk, and it urged her to prevent any samples of her DNA staying in that house. It had no control enough to obscure any data that house obtained.

While Ohtremnek set a brisk pace, Oihana looked up through the strange trees and spotted the ship in which they had arrived. It was still halfway up the pyramid, which lacked a hangar. From here, the external damage was clearly visible. A whole engine was being taken apart by tiny figures, the pieces stacked on hovercrafts. There were probably technicians inside as well, and Jormungandr would have to stay low. The system had infinite patience, but she doubted the reasons to be inactive wouldn't last long.

Ohtremnek and her soon disappeared into the undergrowth entirely, crossing a small valley between the released her breath and with that a lot of the tension that had heaped up in her. The plants gave her a semblance of a wall against the overload.

When they emerged, they passed by a massive field full of low growth. In the full light, she had a better look at the plants, which were green but otherwise very different from human worlds. The local equivalent for grass was a low growing plant of gas filled bulbs, which popped when one stepped on them, but quickly mended and refilled.

Those popping them were children and a few sparring young warriors. With every step they took, there was a series of small pops, almost melodic. She managed her first smile at this.

What she'd discarded as individual quirks turned out to be racial. Dark stripes on a lighter skin tone were a dominant features on all these yautja, and they had somewhat asymmetrical crest ridges that started above the eyes, not unlike brows. Ohtremnek looked rather different in comparison, looking more gray and mottled, without the ridges on his crest or the eye white. The only truly universal trait amongst the houses were the darkened eye sockets, an evolutionary trait likely for the same reason deserts works of Ghilsaer City would shade their eyes against the heat.

She asked him about the five houses, and he slowed his pace to summon his map again.

The four pyramids belonged to four clans of yautja who had united into one tribe. Several ten thousand years ago, these four had decided that all the advanced technology gave them an unfair advantage over their prey and diluted the purity of the hunt. They'd forsaken everything, settled on a death world that they infested with some interesting species and lived the old way for generations. This resulted in a few new traditions, most notably a stronger emphasis on family.

The entire yautja culture was built around the ancient practice of the males hunting while the larger females protected the den. When the four clans put themselves into this world, where danger was constant and they had no advanced technology or medicine, they forced themselves through an evolutionary bottleneck that brought the instinctive source of the tradition back in full force and spousal loyalty a requirement against inbreeding, which particularly caused problems when the population shrink by plague or when a local predator species got out of control. Ohtremnek's house had a lot of fun theorizing about all the genetic hijinks that had happened here, but mostly kept quiet about it. Not only were the other four houses unfamiliar with technology, some were downright suspicious of it.

She could see there was a strong tendency to stick close, since the houses each seemed to have a particular coloration. Nataeloixren Mra was the one to which Tex and his family belonged, consisting mainly of yellows and beige with stripes. Hukcha'mengache Stve was their closest connection, its members a grayish brown with more mottles and vaguer stripes. The other two native houses were Yetenyemen Xeze and Akarin'chau Ore, of which she couldn't see any right now.

Naturally, every now and then hunters had dropped by to profit from the same death world, and reintroduction to technology was inevitable once the older generations were gone. It wasn't so much need as want : their lifestyle put them to the brink of being declared blasphemous, since the elders on the homeworld found it very suspicious they denied the technology that allowed monitoring of their hunting methods.

Ohtremnek's clan had come into play here less than a century ago. Chuiyeminde Tchea was another clan that the homeworld was suspicious about due to their pursuit of science. After a recent plague of badbloods had been annihilated, who had used technology to control the kainde amedha, the homeworld had zoned in on them as possible criminals. This had resulted in them being turned away when it came to mating. After a conflict erupted between a classic clan and them, they had approached the Nirevéh tribe with a request to join. They would provide them with technology and integrate with their lifestyle, while the Nirevéh tribe would offer them protection and a chance to breed.

The result of the merge was one new, smaller pyramid, and a yautja tribe that was still rather unorthodox by homeworld standards, but no longer in a way that could be challenged by the code.

Ohtremnek had a lot of fun sharing what he knew, and Oihana had plenty of questions about the tribe and this world. Could they expect those dangerous monsters here? (No, they were on hard soil, the monsters were underground.) How had this place been built without technology? (Carved from a cave filled plateau with centuries of patience and a few primitive bombs.) What did all those statues mean? (Gods and guardian spirits, the four houses were very religious; by the way, if you notice any disbelievers walking around in his house, don't snitch on them, okay?)

They entered the smaller pyramid through normal entrance and went deep into the pyramid. The entire atmosphere was different one, it was very bright and the warmth was less intense. There were cameras installed everywhere that could detect both infrared and light.

Though there were skulls on certain walls, it was more like in a museum. They displayed rare creatures from long ago, rather than recent kills drenched with dying memories. The walls and halls had a less rough look, doors opened mechanically and she spotted numerous alien creatures in domes; Ohtremnek explained they were rare species nearly hunted to extinction. His house was trying to revive them. Other animals were kept because the produced a rare component.

She didn't stand out too much amongst all these creatures, and the only hindrance to reaching the laboratory was an older yautja who stopped Ohtremnek because he was curious at Oihana, having heard the humans in Ghilsaer had been unusually tough. Oihana wasn't exactly a fine example of that right now, mess as she was, but the elder pinpointed a few possible local diseases she had caught. It gave Ohtremnek a little headstart when he arrived in the laboratory.

He was a student with a particular school that specialized in technology, but he wasn't entirely alien to biology either. He knew a doctor who would be interested in figuring out what medicines worked on humans, which he never had a chance for.

This doctor was colored similarly gray, but with far more mottles than Ohtremnek. He was a busy, small figure who couldn't get a job done quick enough, both to satisfy his curiosity and to move to the next project. There was a definite interest in taking DNA samples, which Oihana couldn't persuade him from, especially not after Ohtremnek told him about the unusual qualities of the Ghilsaer humans.

For a moment Oihana feared Ohtremnek would also tell him she was a spirit speaker, but when he noticed she desperately didn't want that, he kept his words. It would probably mean she'd be locked up, away from her friends, and as curious as he was he did understand that wasn't good for her. He wouldn't like it either if he couldn't meet Karga'te and Ghuran anymore.

Now she thought of it, what did smart Otter do with Karga'te and Ghuran, two more volatile yautja? She asked him, partially to divert herself from panicking over the sample taken.

"I met Karga'te in the library, believe it or not. He was looking up something about local wildlife, I was there for history. We kind of ignored each other, until Ghuran picked a fight with me when I was on my way out. Karga'te stood up for me," he said with an amused clatter. "And promptly, the next day demanded I serve as his personal librarian for the next cycle because he was having trouble with the scrolls. When Ghuran found out Karga'te had 'beaten him up over dusty scrolls', they had a vendetta that sizzled out and now they don't bother anymore."

He wasn't all that interesting in sharing much personal things with her. Maybe he thought she could figure it out herself, but she also had a feeling he didn't find it worth the time to open up. Again, she realized he was mostly curious about her due to her abilities. If she hadn't had extrasensory perception, his attention probably had been with one of her more tech savvy friends. Frank probably would have had a field day at all this fancy equipment.

The laboratory was full of advanced equipment, superior scanning methods and other things Oihana couldn't imagine the purpose for. She was glad for them though, since it meant they could diagnose her without cutting her up. Treating the subject well was a standard for Ohtremnek's tribe, not necessarily out of altruistic reasons. They simply understood a happy subject lived longer and caused less trouble.

By evening they concocted a thick liquid that eased her swollen throat, subduing a colony of bacteria she had breathed in. It was based on a yautja medicine, but with a more base level and without one particular ingredient. They also eased tension from her eyes, which were affected by certain gas in the atmosphere. Deeper infections were tougher to deal with, and she responded poorly to half of the medicines they tried.

All in all though, she wasn't getting _worse_ than she already was. There was a rather curious rash on her back though, which was spreading quickly and oozing slime. Now her mind tuned into this thought, she noticed she wasn't the only one.

The two yautja couldn't identify it with any known diseases, so pinned it on different biological traits. In other words, they didn't need to analyze her DNA to learn she wasn't quite human, it was no secret that humans never secreted anything. Chuiyeminde Tchea had a rather rich database on the human species.

While they took a sample, she cooperated innocently, sat still on the table and feigned fearful surprise at the slime. In her mind, she reached out frantically.

Not so far away was a dome that kept a rather large, agile alien species. They were in the middle of removing one of them for a standard health check. She closed her eyes and forced focus into the animal's mind.

She found resonance. The creature was familiar with psychic contact, it had been subject to it before by others within this pyramid. Those creatures had been fearful, but Oihana offered it just a gentle mental touch, and a little inspiration to break free and run rampant in her direction. Animals were so much easier to influence, since they had no complex thoughts to keep them from acting on their impulses.

The doctor took out a machine to analyze the sample while Ohtremnek tinkered with his helmet. He was getting curious why the translation program worked less well than before, at which Oihana suggested Mahad's laptop was needed. A flimsy excuse, but it would hold for the time being. Hopefully, once Frank felt better he'd devise a credible hardware related reason that Ohtremnek couldn't verify cause it had been been destroyed with Ghilsaer. As thinking about the city, she couldn't entirely suppress a wave of anger.

Which got copied to her psychic bond creature.

Who was already broken loose, but no alarm was raised because it hadn't acted hostile. Till now.

The door broke at the hinges as a three meter tall, eight legged monster squeezed its way in, shrieking loudly. Ohtremnek and the doctor promptly put the scientist away in favor of being warriors, and

In the moment of their distraction, Oihana jumped off the table and snatched both the slime sample and the DNA sample, all the while throwing a mental suggestion at the creature that it could hook its head below that table and turn it over. Given she wasn't calm, the creature did more. It tore table loose and tossed it across the place. The laboratory was a chaos field within no time, and the only thing the two yautja had to counter the rampage was their wrist blades.

Oihana broke the sample on different spots, then forced herself to calm down. The animal had plenty of panic of its own by now, threatening to overwhelm her, but she had enough will to counter it. It wasn't after her. She didn't want it to die for this. She focused on those thoughts, and shared the need for calmness with the animal. She also told Ohtremnek, who was about to try and jab his blades through its leg, that he needed to back off.

Confused, he took the cue and called for the other to stand back.

The animal tossed its square head a few times, unsteady on its many legs, then stood almost stock still. Oihana let her breath go and smiled. She climbed over an anchored that had been torn loose and stood before the animal. Poor thing had gotten injured while crashing around, which was her fault. If for no other reason, she needed better control over her influence.

She considered whether to touch it, and found some stray knowledge from Ohtremnek. Normally these creatures were peaceful anyway, so it wouldn't be too odd if she approached. But no, she had a role to play. If she approached the creature, it would be too suspicious. She pressed against the wall and pretended to cower while yautja flooded in with sticks with extending ropes to restrain the creature.

The doctor gave a furious rant about wanting to gut who ever had slacked off in security and called for a repair team, while Ohtremnek approached Oihana. He gruffly picked her up, grabbed some samples of the medicine they'd found effective and excused himself from the doctor. Without much regard he was sent off, the doctor was fretting too much over his laboratory to pay much attention. She couldn't help but feel bad for him, she had only meant to create a diversion, not to get the creature _this_ riled up.

Then there was Ohtremnek, who for some reason felt terribly offended. She quietly asked him why, but he was intent not to talk to her until they were out of the pyramid.

It was getting colder, and the first stars were appeared in the darkening blue. She didn't get a clear look at the new constellations, since Ohtremnek was in a run till he got to the undergrowth. There he set her down on a rock and hunched before her, he was shivering a bit from the cold.

"You called that creature," Ohtremnek said with a snarl. Oh. He'd recognized where exactly she'd gotten the furniture tossing idea, namely from him. "Why?"

She fumbled with her hands. "The samples. I didn't want them to find out about my powers, remember? They'd take me away from the others. What if he could read in my genes what I can do?"

That was close enough to the truth to be convincing, but he didn't stop being irate.

"You could have just asked me to deal with that. Polluting samples isn't all that difficult, I would have done it." Ah, he was offended she hadn't taken his word to the logical conclusion. She had to remind herself that she often wasn't aware of mental things like that if they weren't strongly based on emotion.

"Sorry," she whispered.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. This whole situation made him uncomfortable, he wasn't used to having to deal with children, let with demure, small sapients that could on a whim cause _other_ things to become violent.

"What am I supposed to start with you?"

"How about a deal? You can test stuff about my clairsentience if you help me with some other stuff?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet. But you can handle deals, yes?"

He didn't quite understand that, not consciously aware of his own confusion at the situation. Nonetheless, he agreed.

This time, she walked back on her own feet, and they didn't talk anymore about the tribe. She explained about the part of the world neither humans nor yautja could see. He called it the gift of all sights, and made a scathing remark about how this meant that virtually ever yautja would finish in the dance of the fallen gods, according to theology.

Kea'chethi was none too pleased about the time they'd taken to get back, but reported she'd invented something against the sore muscles. Ohtremnek handed her the medicine he'd brought along, which was enough to get Carly on her feet again. The other two however had fallen into an uneasy sleep.

Oihana got a clearer look at their room now. It held about twelve massive beds in rows of three against the wall, and three atop of them, all carved into solid rock. The room was dusty and hadn't been used for a long time. In the beds occupied by the humans, some rough blankets lay. Melanie was asleep and Ayo had vivid nightmares, so strong that Oihana caught glimpses; everyone dying messily. Both of them were soaked, and on closer inspection, so was Carly. They were all covered by sweat ... or rather thick slime.

Ohtremnek and Kea talked about how to apply the new medicine, then he rattled a goodbye and left the room. He'd be helping his mentor clean up the laboratory now, and make sure no DNA samples were found.

Carly followed along what was said on her wristband and raised a curious eye at Oihana. "What DNA samples?"

She had to think back at what Andrew had shown her. An involuntary shiver ran across her back, what if this wasn't just the catching of local diseases? Andrew had mentioned something about cocoons ...

"Tell you later," she said, motioning for Kea as she started applying the medicine on Melanie. Carly treated herself and then went to Ayo.

When Kea was gone too, she repeated her question to Oihana.

"The man who killed my mother told me something, and Jormungandr confirmed it. We're not just _not_ humans, we're something radically different from humans. I don't think we want them to know about that."

She told her what she knew (they likely had regenerative powers), what she suspected (they were enhanced and could enhance further) and what she feared (they'd make excellent prey and the oat hadn't been to anything but humans).

All Carly said in response was, "Well, damn."

**· · · · · · ·**


	19. Alleged Medicine

**· · · · · · ·**

Nra'tex-ne had a shameful little secret : the part he enjoyed the most about the hunt was when he returned home. It was the sense of completion and success shared at the feast that followed and then the possible favor of one of his wives, rather than the thrill of danger and blood that made it all worth it. This didn't _quite_ fit the way one had to walk the Path, but he reasoned it wasn't a diversion severe enough to impair him walking it. In the end, honor was gained, and isolated rooms were sought out with the final result being strong children.

He wasn't going to get any of that today.

When he stepped out of the small ship, he saw a nervous Kea'chethi await him in the corner of the hangar. He separated from his pack and bowed his head as he stopped before her, ignoring the deriding clatters from behind him. Kea'chethi was a disgraced female and once a student of his, they thought he shouldn't pay respect to her. He though they should suck it up.

Kea'chethi bowed in returned, quickly greeted him and then informed him in short sentences that his humans had all fallen ill because they had no immune system to native diseases. She and Ohtremnek had unearthed a few medicines that helped against certain symptoms, and she had been administering them to the two groups over the past week.

Groups?

Apparently, the humans had been separated to prevent them from breeding. This irked Nra'tex-ne to no extent, though he didn't voice it. To impose a segregation on the humans felt incredibly hypocrite. The humans weren't supposed to be living here forever anyway, they were guests until a hunter ship would pass by a human inhabited planet and drop them off, not slaves. If in the time between now and their departure, one of them wanted a child, that was their business.

Kea'chethi finished by requesting that he see whether he could get a few medicines that she wasn't ranked enough to get, or allow her to leave the city to retrieve rare plants to try and create them herself. She seemed eager to continue treating them, which he did not mind, but he was curious why she wanted to.

"It keeps me out of the houses and out of the pit," she said, and that was all he needed to know.

Kea slipped into the side passage from which she'd come, and Nra'tex-ne saw his pack had already moved on. Normally he'd join them, but today would be cramped. Getting medicines for a disease neither he nor his children suffered from wouldn't be the easiest. Off course, he needed medicine himself too. His injured leg was held together with stitches and a remnant of stiff medicine.

But first, there was the indispensable ritual of presenting his skulls to his wives. He'd caught two uzorelts which yet needed to be properly cleanses. Ohtremnek's house had advanced equipment for this, but his house did it traditionally : with lots of bleach and minuscule attention to scraping. He'd already treated the crocodile skull this way. He went to his personal trophy room, finished the job as quickly as he could and then took out rope. The crocodile skull went on his back, while the other two were hooked below his underarms.

As a fairly accomplished hunter, he was tied to seven wives who roughly shared one communal room. Loose families were formed around these rooms, which were surrounded by infant pits for the children, training rooms, nurseries and off course trophy rooms. There wasn't any real perimeter to the living quarters halfway up the pyramid, but it was understood by personal experience where one could stray and where not. Some of his wives had other husbands, and while he wasn't on bad foot with any of them, but he ought to not cross their territory.

Fortunately for his leg, his trophy room was below the communal room, so he only had to cross a stairs and some passages to reach it. On the way, he met one of his elder daughters, who gave him an amused look. Doubtlessly, she'd heard about his role in the most recent disaster. She told him only three were awaiting him, but it should be fine, and opened opened the heavy stone door for him.

Barely did he step in, or he was already surrounded by a swarm of toddlers. He really shouldn't, but he couldn't help kneel down and let them look at the skulls. He had seventeen young children right now. Half of them would not survive the blooding hunt, and he did not bother getting _too_ attached. Still, his children had a fairly high survival rate in the past, and his two eldest sons had already come to the age of having multiple wives. He did not want to be a stranger to them either, so he often indulged in moments like this. The three wives that awaited him today were lenient and took no offense if he strayed a little from protocol.

Zeltzumar, Kso'redese and Ouke'tenta often were in each other's company, and they gathered around them others who didn't take it too tight with the rules. That was why he was their sole husband. Him pulling his little brother and later said brother's friend out of the servant ranks and making worthy warriors out of them, it had given him a reputation of not taking the judgment system of the elders too seriously.

In truth, he took it perfectly serious, it was just that sometimes they missed details and he smoothed out those details. He hadn't even realized what a reputation it gave him till the wives who chose him turned out to be so bloody lenient, and expected him to be so as well. It had vexed him, but truth he said sometimes it was useful. For one, they allowed Karga'te and his friends to enter their territory.

The three had taken a seat on the wide, fur covered couches that formed a circle around the central fire. Right now, the flames were low, but they could be blindingly warm. He stood up and told the children to step back, then he circle the fire and laid the skulls before them. He knelt down on his good leg and bowed his head.

Ouke'tenta eagerly asked for the story of his hunt and he related it with all the thrill and roar that she desired. Zeltzu merely asked for his helmet and placed it over her face to watch the recording of the battles, while Kso'redese tried feigning interest in his story by leaning forward and staring at the fire.

Zeltzumar was done watching before Nra'tex-ne was done talking. She skeptically looked at the skulls, he could imagine her finding fault with the few blade scratches on it. If Ouke'tenta hadn't spoken first, she probably would have complained.

"And you did all that with a damaged leg. Delicious," she purred.

Zeltzumar glared at her, but Ouke'tenta ignored her and gestured for him to approach her. Her musk was increasing in strength, filling the air with that enticing fragrance. He was dimly aware of needing to ask about something, barely registered the children scampering out of the room as they recognized the scent.

Ouke'tenta grabbed him by the hair and pulled him atop of her, leaning back against the couch. She ran her hands across his back and he forgot about everything.

At least until Kso'redese smacked Ouke'tenta on the head. Nra'tex-ne startled when the female below him suddenly turned aggressive, but quickly realized it wasn't directed at him.

Kso'redese nonchalantly fell down on the couch, not impressed by Ouke'tenta's threats, and hooked her right foot below Nra'tex-ne's stomach. She pushed him back on his feet while catching Ouke'tenta's incoming punch with both hands.

"Nra'tex-ne, you shouldn't be hunting nor screwing with a damaged leg unless you want to be crippled for the rest of your live. Damn the elders," Kso said with a yawn and a shove at Ouke'tenta. "Go get that healed."

Ouke'tenta didn't care and snarled ferociously at Kso'redese. There was a reason she had most children, and there also was a reason he knew very little of said children. Ouke'tenta was possessive and had a low opinion of males outside out their purpose as held those details in mind in an effort to fight back the temptation she posed.

"Kso is right, Ouke. Reign yourself in. Nra'tex-ne was definitely not in top shape during these hunts and I won't stand for that becoming custom," Zeltzumar barked.

Ouke'tenta's growl deepened and she stood up abruptly, jumped over the back of the couch and stomped out of the room. She didn't bothering closing the door all the way, so they heard her hollering for her children. At this, Kso'redese called for her own, suddenly alarmed at the idea of them being near an irritated Ouke'tenta.

Her children and those of Zeltzumar hesitantly came back in the room. They instinctively knew that the mating scent was dangerous. No yautja was deliberately hurt a child their age, but during mating yautja tended to be rather lost in their passion and it could happen by accident. He decided to get some tension out of the air by asking the elder ones for helping mount the skulls on the honorary stand near the pillars. They'd stay there for a few days on display, till they'd be removed to his trophy room or claimed by a wife as decoration.

"Nra'tex-ne, are you just slow because of your leg, or was there something else?" Zeltzumar asked.

Oh, right, there was. Pushing back the lasting effects of Ouke's musk, he returned to the circle around the fire. Remaining on hit feet this time, he said humbly, "You have no doubt heard of the humans that have aided us. They've caught local diseases and I would like to send Kea'chethi to retrieve more material to create medicine. Her knowledge of plantlife will allow her to acquire all the material without having to trouble our medics."

"Meidache was right. He comes back from barely salvaging his honor and immediately wants help for his latest pet project," Kso'redese said with an amused rumble. "And Kea again. Don't let Ouke hear."

There was a touchy dimension to him having had a female student. On one side, it seemed ludicrous he'd boss around someone taller than him. On the other side, Kea was anything but popular. There was a weird dynamic between him asking her to do things he couldn't do without social deriding, and her needing him for his honored name.

"I don't know how you got it into their heads to take along the humans. I understand honoring an agreement in a dire situation, but couldn't you have dumped them somewhere else on the planet? They asked for far more than a mere exchange of information requires," Zeltzumar said sharply.

"I gave my word of their survival, and beyond that city was only desert. They would not survive there."

"You could just have promised to present their request, instead of directly promising their survival. That was not a call for you to make, yet you place the elders in a position where they would look callous for not honoring _your_ word."

He bowed his head. "I understand your point."

She narrowed her eyes and tightened her mandibles, and he knew he was going to have to do a lot to get back in her favor. Not that he minded _that_ much. Zeltzumar was more difficult to please in the three stages of courting than most other wives, she was an unwelcome challenge.

Kso'redese pulled her two toddlers on her lap and let them play with her hair. " _I_ need some plants from the neustiar lake, I'll send Kea and then she can bring along what she needs for the humans. No trouble with the elders, no weird rumors for you."

He bowed his head to her. "I thank you, Kso'redese. Your—"

"Quit being so formal. We're not on the homeworld," Zeltzumar said. She fell sideways on the couch and groaned when a clutter of children climbed on her. She told one of them to grab a communicator, and snatched it from the child's hand."Hey, Kastiri. My guy's coming down to the temple. Kso's sending Kea for some herbs, see whether it's necessary for her to leave the city or, and ... some of Nra'tex-ne's humans may show up as well. They're sick, test whether your medicines work on the. Be nice ... Yes, humans. No, that wasn't a silly rumor. Dammit girl, when's the last time you've been out of your meditations?"

In response to the acolyte's next words, she looked Nra'tex-ne in the eyes. "Any of those humans warriors? They won't accept them on guest favor and no non-warriors may pass the threshold."

"Two of them are," he said.

Zeltzumar finished her conversation, tossed away the communicator and covered her eyes with an arm, trying to drown out the nagging of one of her children. "Those two will come down to you, and you can test some medicines on them. Whatever."

"Thank you," he said simply, and stood up to pick the nagging child off of her. He took the girl to Kso'redese's couch and handed her over. Kso'redese accepted the child without resistance, she was used to taking the workload off of the others. That's why none of them snitched on her little problem.

After giving in to his children wanting to hear the rest of the story, he made his way down to the temple of the healing goddess Azenkastral. He had not exactly planning on going there, but Zeltzumar had her connections there and had used them today in his favor. There was no particular reason to object. He was accustomed to seek out the hall of the teaching goddess Akarantaun, once all the matter of hunting was done.

Azenkastral's priestess was a healer, naturally. Her acolytes would be able to help him and supply Kea'chethi was well, if not better, as the usual doctors did. Her temple was deep in the pyramid, five circular halls around a small inner sanctum where the high priestess Ustran'ku resided. Four of the five halls were overseen by her daughters, the fifth by a chosen acolyte after one of her daughters proved inadequate.

Nra'tex-ne stepped into the nearly blinding warmth, surrounded by the thick incense that drowned out most scents. This was to discourage any tempting of the acolytes. There was always an echo here, helping one navigate on ear, and there was always a young child in each hall to play an instrument, who could be asked for directions. Today, there was no need for this, though. Kastiri met him soon and brought him to one of many small adjacent chambers, where she told him to lie down.

The room was as traditional as the greater halls outside, full of bottles of medicine and bones of blessing and the usual bench to lie down on, but in here was also hidden some more advanced technology. She pulled a scanner from the walls, where it was hidden in a statue of one of the legendary disciples of Azenkastral. That struck him as blasphemously amused, but surely the priestesses knew how not to offend their goddess.

The verdict wasn't thrilling. His damaged muscle had been healing, but not knitting together as well as it ought to. They'd forego any traditional healing methods and go right for an operation. This meant anesthetics, which he regretted. Right now, he could use some pain to keep his mind clear, since said mind kept reminding him how close he'd gotten to a good screw.

Anesthetics weren't exactly honorable, since anyone should be able to deal with pain, but surgeon was not a popular profession, so they had to be careful with those few in the field. A pained warrior ripping open an arm that was carefully at work could render a surgeon useful forever. The protective neckrings everyone wore could only do so much.

Kastiri administered the anesthetic and departed to find a surgeon and let the effect set in. He spent the time in prayer, lying down on the bench.

It was during this that the two humans were pushed into the room. The door practically shut before they were entirely through. Likely the servant didn't want them seen, as to avoid offending any elders, but Nra'tex-ne found that over reaction. The smoke and warmth would hide them well enough.

Nra'tex-ne sat up and switched on the system in his helmet, just in time to get a translation.

"Hey," Jarrod said anxiously. "I hear they're going to experiment on us?"

"Kea'chethi will arrive soon. She will be allowed to use a few medical machines to monitor how well her medicines work, and try to concoct something new to test out. Nothing that she and Ohtremnek have not done already, so do not worry."

Carly crossed her arms and looked around the room, eyes settling on the mark of the goddess that was carved on every wall. "Who'se the huge statue we passed by on the way? Ancestor? Folk hero?"

"Azenkastral, the goddess of healing," Nra'tex-ne said. "I pray to her that she may favor we find a cure for your state."

Carly stared at the wristband for a little longer than necessary and made a dismissive or scoffing sound. Jarrod seemed to roll his eyes.

Now what was that about?

"You're mocking my goddess?" he said with a threatening snarl.

They didn't say anything, looking startled. Oh, he'd been in their presence long enough to learn the meanings of their expressions. Carly was fond of scoffing at things, and it insulted him that she expected he hadn't learned anything.

"I cannot mock what I don't believe exists. Just surprised that such an advanced civilization still worships so blatantly. My species gave up on that as they understood the world better."

He sharply clattered his mandibles. "No wonder they are such an dishonorable load. Once, some your kind worshiped us as their gods. I reckon it was a mistake to abandon them. Your own gods seemed to have abandoned your species."

Carly's head snapped to him, and her voice sounded like she restrained an outburst. "Tex, I've got a burning headache, my spine feels like it got ripped out and put back and my skin is swelling. I'm only standing here to prove that yeah, we're gonna get better and food isn't entirely wasted on us."

He forced down his irritation.

"What makes you believe we would deny you food?" he asked gruffly.

"Oh, just the part where the only only actually _giving_ us food is Kea and she says she can only bring in so much cause she's of low rank. And it's not enough. We get ignored if we ask anyone else."

She didn't look as a starved yautja, but then again, humans were skinny to begin with.

So that was why Kea'chethi wanted to leave the city, instead of just asking for more medicine. She wanted to find food for them, but likely hadn't brought that up because they'd been standing in a hangar full of yautja who wouldn't want to hear her accuse the females of starving anyone to death. Starving was considered a dishonorable method of killing, no matter what. Even if it was done by proxy, by simply not giving the servant crawlspaces extra food, it was _low_.

As much as he didn't like to attribute such dishonorable methods of killing to his kinsfolk, he could see their reasoning. Why waste food on anything that was going to die anyway? Off course, the lack of food might exactly be _why_ they'd end up dying.

"You have my word that I'll ensure you'll receive enough food," he said while standing up. "Once you are healed, I will teach you how to hunt for yourselves and get you permission to leave the city."

"Like in the official hunt to get honor? Pass," Carly said evenly. His helmet translated this as a mountain road, so he tilted his head curiously.

"Pass?

"It means _no_ ," Carly snapped. "I'm not interested in any ritual killing."

At this point, he should be the patient teacher and clarify that hunting in the jungle didn't require her to be a true hunter anymore than the children who killed lizards and defended themselves against smaller threats were considered walkers of the path already. But the sharp denial of wanting to step onto the Path vexed him beyond belief.

"Had I indeed offered to train you as a true hunter, you should have been flattered. There is no greater honor than to walk the Path that the gods trailed before us. Without honor, you are nothing. That is why they let you starve!"

"Honor? We call that money, except we have more than one way to get it. Most of those ways don't involve a side dish of murder."

"We call that the one thing that makes life worth it. The hunt is not about killing, it is about worth, about fulfillment, about truly _living_. When facing an equal in combat—"

"That's not what I've seen! You have invisibility, better weapons, better everything!" she bit back. "Starving the inconveniences to death is just another dirty trick like that to—"

She got no further as he grabbed her shoulder and shoved her back harshly, roaring in her face. She stumbled on ill legs and fell back, a loud crack sounding as her head hit the floor. She cried out shortly and didn't get up.

"Thanks for proving my point," she said through gritted teeth. "Now, if we can stop pretending that honor matters ..."

Jarrod bent down and worriedly reached behind her head. Through the thick air, Nra'tex-ne smelled a hint of blood and mentally kicked himself. Sick humans weren't nearly as enduring as a healthy yautja child of that size, he should have realized he couldn't easily smell here how bad their shape was. With a regretful growl, he moved to help her stand up, but Jarrod startled and held up a hand defectively.

"Please forgive her. Please."

"I'm not angry," Nra'tex-ne clarified. "But she was out of bounds. In our society you'll have to be careful. As you saw, I did not realize my strength compared to yours, and there will be more who won't realize."

He reached down again, but Carly crawled back. " Yeah, thanks for the demonstration. Guessing that insulting the hunt is everyone's trigger?"

Trigger was another word that did not get translated well, it appeared as something weapon related. He was about to ask about it when Jarrod continued.

"Nra'tex-ne, we understand. But there's something you also need to understand. We can't take your concept of honor as meaning much when all it does is dictate you can't kill people on an official hunt, but other methods are just fine. You destroyed our city. You killed our family. You've been starving ... well, not you personally... dammit, does this get translated right?" Jarrod brushed a hand across his forehead, sounding like he was restraining irritation, or perhaps his sorrow. "We're grateful we are alive, but that doesn't cancel out everything else."

Carly untied her hair and carefully placed her fingers on the wound. Jarrod moved behind her to look at it and said, "It's closing up already, weird."

"It's not too bad," Carly said as she stood up.

"Do we really need to wait in here?" Jarrod asked, a weary eye on Nra'tex-ne. He sat back down on the bench, somewhat irritated that they felt threatened by him after he'd made it clear it had been an accident. He'd have continued talking if the drugs weren't slowly clouding his head.

As Jarrod fussed and Carly tried convincing him he was alright, he watched them. There were seats near the wall, but they never took them. They touched nothing, had no reverence for the marks of the gods, were confused by the incense and made scathing remarks about some of the best medicine in the room.

It started to dawn on him what he had done. They'd been taken out of their culture and into his, leaving them only a stranger's home to return to. If they would not adapt, it would destroy what little they had left and it would affect his life too. The last thing he needed for blasphemous humans going around, humans he had brought here.

Kastiri and another acolyte returned after a long time, ignored the humans to the point where she didn't even usher them out of the room as the surgeon prepared. He realized he'd forgotten to tell the humans what was about to happen to him. They looked shocked when the surgeon pulled out a knfe, and then Carly grinned and said they weren't any less messy than she had been. Then he was out cold.

**· · · · · · ·**


	20. Contrived Coincidences

**· · · · · · ·**

Like all unblooded, Karga'te had no right for a private room and slept in the kehrite. Unlike on the ships, however, the kehrite in the pyramids had smaller rooms and space was only shared with about twenty to thirty individuals. Normally, if one had friends they were from the same room, but Karga'te was largely ignored by the local packs. In the beginning they often picked on him, but as he caught up with training, this became a very bad idea.

Strength didn't earn him favors, though. Where the others had stories of their childhood, he had nothing interesting or funny to tell. In addition, he had a luxury few others shared : Nra'tex-ne practically was a private mentor. Save for the most promising, the others were taught in classes by combat teachers. Nra'tex-ne was one of those teachers, and by all means should have taken a _promising_ student, and not favor his pitiable family.

Karga'te did not like being reminded of this. Every morning, he was up earliest thanks to a clock Ohtremnek had installed in his helmet. He'd sneak out before the others, avoid their irritating remarks and meet his actual friends. Ghuran usually wasn't too far, but if he wanted to meet Ohtremnek and Kea'chethi he had to leave the kehrite. For the duration of Nra'tex-ne's absence he had not been granted permission to leave. He _had_ been involved in a disobedient act, after all, which had cost him trust points. His first sign of Nra'tex-ne's return was a message from Ohtremnek, telling him his kehrite arrest was lifted and by the way, his brother had a job for him that he'd like. He didn't care that he'd been woken up, and he didn't care that it was still a cold night. He was getting out _now_.

In the cold outside, he could clearly see her standing at the top of the stairs. With amused self satisfaction he noted she didn't smell _too_ aggressive. Barely was he up or she stomped him on the arm and growled, "What were you thinking, abducting me?"

He kicked her right back and rattled, "I thought it would be fun. It was."

A poor truth, but if that creepy spirit speaker was paying attention, he really didn't want it to get any reason to further brainwash Kea. The same rang true for his brother and friends. Though he had to admit, there were a number of others that he would not mind being taken down a few notches.

They continued snapping at each other as they walked into the undergrowth. Passing outside the pyramid was a detour, but neither minded avoiding the packs.

Nra'tex-ne had arranged that Kea'chethi would get some extra scouting range from Uich'ernite, and Karga'te was to accompany Nra'tex-ne again. That wasn't customary, since all they'd do was get some basic survival stuff into the human's minds. Karga'te and Nra'tex-ne would with getting the male side of the human pack accustomed to things, Kea would take charge of the females. Hanging out with humans wasn't ideal, but hey, he got to go out with his brother and meet Kea on daily base. At least for a while.

"What do you think about this whole mess? I mean that they're living here."

"For all I care, it's giving me an excuse to practice my medicine and get out more often," Kea said, a gleeful look on her face. Kea'chethi had a bizarre affection for plantlife that Karga'te found an everlasting enigma, but that had always been there. She probably wasn't being mind manipulated anymore.

She leaned against him teasingly and he nearly tumbled aside. A few by passing hunters up on a higher road glared at them, and Kea quickly increased the distance between them. She wasn't supposed to get touch with males.

There were an equal number of males and females in the tribe, but families were often unbalanced in the gender ratio. Flatly said, more females got to breed than males at any given time, and diversity was kept because those males often needed replacement due to dying in hunts. Females kept a caste system just as strict as the males, but due to their lower death rates it worked differently. Kea didn't exist on in this caste system, and she was frequently reminded of this. Her status as a hunter was sheer mockery of all the free time she'd be having, so she could hunt for herself.

It still was better than elsewhere though. Mainstream yautja society separated the genders, with the males traveling as nomads and only meeting the females for mating. In that system, there were no servants, no excessive colonies to uphold, and so no room for Kea'chethi. Living here as an outcast was better than death.

It wasn't good enough for Karga'te. He knew what his brother had gotten into, what everyone else got into. Didn't help to know that their favorite softmeat prey across the past hundred years was successfully building a transgalaxial empire just fine with a culture where sex was for free.

Though, he couldn't quite envy humanity all that much.

When he and Kea entered the tiny room below Nra'tex-ne's quarters, they almost threw Melanie off her feet by just stepping through the door. She was in the middle of running out, making a barfing motion and clutching her mouth. Humans and all their diseases, it really was pathetic. Yautja had eradicated nearly all illness by letting the strong breed only (and now they _were_ strong, his people could ditch the system already, as far as Karga'te was concerned).

The other three humans were firmly asleep. He and Kea exchanged a mischievous glance and then they took hold of the blankets that the humans were lying on. At the same moment, they pulled.

The three humans tumbled off the beds. The room just being small enough to have them land partially in a pathetic little pile. If any yautja servants had been in this room, they'd probably take advantage of the new rugs right away, but neither Karga'te or Kea spiteful enough to step on them.

"Hairknot's going to be up first," Karga'te said.

And sure enough, Carly cursed in her language as she crawled back on her feet and gave them an unabashed glare. Kea pushed against her forehead and she staggered back, but kept her footing.

"Be wise that you don't look at an elder that way. Your head would be off," she purred. She briefly look at her wristband, muttered something angry and didn't reply.

Ayo had gotten to her feet by then and kept her eyes on the ground, doing the opposite of Carly. She was too submissive for her own good, she looked like she was apologizing before she'd even done something wrong.

The creep didn't even try to get up, she just curled into a little ball.

Kea, oblivious to how that thing wasn't as harmless as she looked, bent down to shake her softly. "Did we break anything?"

"Don't worry about it," Karga'te said. "These humans are sturdy."

Carly swore again at him, but shut her mouth when Kea picked up the child and put her back in bed. Karga'te wondered whether the thing was manipulating again to get sympathy, but didn't really notice anything odd about himself, or Kea. Though again, Kea's inclination towards fixing organisms was odd in and off itself.

Something else was more immediately wrong. The blankets they were on were slimy, and when Kea placed the girl back on the bed, the same slime covered her hands.

When he asked Kea about it, she said they'd started secreting it earlier already and it was apparently harmless. Huh. He'd heard heardmeat were slimy all the time, but then again, nobody had specifically said humans didn't have their periods of slime too. Ohtremnek would have something to explain later, no doubt.

While Kea wiped her hands on the bed curtains, he prodded Carly and Ayo in the back. Kea explained them what was about to happen, she was to teach them to gather food for themselves, and then they'd go a distance to get some herbs. They constantly looked at their wrist bands and seemed to have difficulty keeping up, and Karga'te was impatient before long.

Carly and Ayo could walk, but they left the other two as they couldn't move from one place to another without support. Good riddance, he hoped the creep had a limited range.

Across the next week, as they worked with the humans, Karga'te was doing a decent job not worrying too much about the potential brainwashing.

And then one day, that blasted spirit speaker started screaming in her silence.

**· · · · · · ·**

Carly was pretty sure as hell didn't exist that by no legal or medical definition she was _better_. Damn the yautja and their delusion that weakness was a great opportunity to show strength.

Every morning, Nra'tex-ne's brats tore them from bed for educative purposes. It involved jungle, but it also involved cleaning weaponry and dealing with chemicals and poisons. Every afternoon, they'd be putting that to work. Sometimes, they sored out and were ordered to do something they hadn't already learned.

The slime and the headaches slowly got less, and admittedly it was far easier to figure out what they could eat when not limited to kitchen scraps. Still, Carly would have given a lot for a good bed and a fat glass of ice tea.

And then, Kea just had to get the fucking fantastic idea to borrow them for the entire day. For field work. In the hot, bug invested jungle. Just when her stupid body decided it absolutely had to refurnish her internal organs now, thank you very much. Surely this was plotted by her generous mutant genes. She needed a counter conspiracy.

All she got was being stuffed into a small airship that had a dank scent to it and too much scratches to be anything but in line for the garbage heap. They were cramped in the dark back while Kea'chethi piloted. It was clearly a cargo vessel, as there were no seats here. They had to hold onto hooks on the wall to keep themselves from being thrown around every time Kea turned a corner.

"Can't she fly over the trees? This can't be good for our breakfast."

"This vessel probably does not produce enough thrust to get higher," Ayo said with a shaky voice, eyes fixed ahead to keep from going nauseous. That was about as much emotion as the teen would give. Carly missed Jarrod, who would at least have vocally agreed and then they could whine together.

Kea stopped sooner than expected, though not as soon as hoped, and for the wrong reason. This was just a short break because she wanted to show them something.

There was a plateau to the south of the city which they had to cross to get to their were at the top of it now, right at the steep edge. Forest covered most of this edge, but there was an open ridge guarded by two massive statues. From here, they could see the five pyramids from about equal height to their peaks. Opposite of this panorama was a solar temple in the form of a relatively smaller pyramid. The sun was rising, casting light through the ashen clouds. Carly supposed it was an impressive sight.

"Upon arrival, the clan used their last bombs to carve out the land. This plateau used to stretch far out where now our pyramids are," Kea explained without invitation.

"It's beautiful," Ayo said, sounding like she meant it.

Carly raised a brow. "You can _afford_ to be a romantic? Kea, how do you even see anything? Does heat not get lost in the distance? Doesn't heat always look the same?"

"I can see in color by default," Kea said. "But not how you could call it beautiful."

"Not beauty as in physically fit or beautiful in an honor gaining way like a trophy," Ayo said. "I don't think your language has a word for it."

Kea'chethi seemed annoyed with the unwanted angle of the conversation, maybe she wanted to talk about history some more. Now she just turned away like they'd insulted her.

Kea was unapproachable in a different way than Ayo, which confused Carly to no end. She was one of the few yautja who put some effort into keeping them alive, but at the same time she didn't seem to care beyond doing a good job. Perhaps she did it out of duty, or boredom, or pride in her work, or to spite the people who treated her as dirt? Maybe she even had sympathy, but that did not have to mean she liked them personally.

She gave them some quick orders to gather local plants while she visited the temple to pray.

Ah well, solitude was preferably anyway.

The site they were at did not look all that different than the immediate vicinity of the pyramids : thick, impenetrable jungle crawling with bugs. Okay, perhaps more bugs than where the kids could get.

Carly tried to chat with Ayo, but was met with sparse responses. They didn't have an awful lot to talk about anyway. While they worked their hands sore in gathering the tough plants, she noticed Ayo flinched at small sounds. Curious, she didn't seem to have this closer towards the pyramids. This made no sense, she'd think that being away from the murderous aliens with a temper was safer. As far as she knew, they were pretty strict about who hunted where and nobody should be around here at the time. Otherwise, Kea wouldn't be allowed to even enter that temple.

When Kea suddenly stood behind them, Ayo squeaked and dropped the bundle she'd been holding, prompting an involuntary laugh from Carly. Ayo glared at her.

In silence, they loaded everything in the airship and were on to their next stop. Kea kept a small valley between hills further to the south west, which she had more or less turned into a wild garden. It was a small paradise of paths through plants from across the galaxy. Not only were the plants roughly ordered by type (low ones up front, taller ones further from the paths) but there was a hint of color coordination as well. Green fanned out into yellow and then red down to a purple core. All plants were tropical, but ranged beyond what Carly had thought possible for plants.

In the center of the valley was one massive tree, which Kea claimed was still young and would grow to implausible heights. In a ring around this tree, there were small shacks and gardening tools were scattered around. Kea parked on a sandy spot and got out, leading them to one of those had a table in the center with all sorts of tools, and the walls were lined with shelves full of pots, jars and glass aquariums. The ceiling was rounded up and some sort of insect hive housed there.

She was a lot more talkative here, though she still only spoke about plants. It was not only boring to follow, but also tedious. Jormungandr did bother to translate, but had to filter through the old transport vessel and avoid being noticed by those maintaining the ship, so translations arrived slowly. Carly was almost happy when she finally let them do something, even if it was just something as tedious as taking a jarred bug and letting it selectively into certain aquariums, which held special plants. Once she was satisfied with how they performed, she left.

Somewhere a tedious half hour into the work, Carly got a sudden and inexplicit sense of danger that was absurdly wasted on the bugs she was handling. Ayo's meticulous concentration was broken when she dropped the jar she'd been holding, eyes going wide.

"Relax, this is probably Oihana sending us a warning for something. Nothing here yet," Carly muttered.

Something exploded outside.

"At least not here with us," Carly added, unable to restrain a ridiculous glee. Something was happening.

They peered out of the window and saw a small but very scorched bit in the garden, close by Kea'chethi in combat pose. She was fixed on the destroyed part of her garden, then looked at a certain direction and roared. It was almost comical, if the reason behind it wasn't the very probable case of some rookies taking advantage of the one female they could mess with. Carly couldn't actually see them anywhere, off course. They'd stay out of sight so she couldn't identify them, but nobody would bother finding out if she complained about unseen attackers.

Ayo tugged her arm and lowered her head. "This isn't a prank."

Carly let herself be dragged to a crouch by Ayo's shaking hand. Outside, another blast sounded and this time Kea roared even louder. The sound ebbed away in a sharp thrill. Carly thought she'd heard it before, when she'd seen a group of yautja kids gang up on a servant.

Ayo's eyes were wide open and fixed on the wood of the wall. "They've got scanners, they'll know we're here."

"I think I saw one of them," Ayo said. "A few days ago, when we were out of scan range of the pyramids first. They've got different skin, brighter colors and more scales. Different armor too."

Another blast outside, and the sound of Kea'chethi running for cover.

"Rival tribe?" Carly whispered.

Sourceless knowledge pushed into her mind.

_Criminals._

Also, _surprise.  
_

Why would Oihana notice only now when Ayo had done so earlier? How did telepathy work anyway? _  
_

_Run_.

Carly peaked out of the window and saw four hunters in distinctly different armor emerge from the treeline. Only two were relatively visible as they waded through the garden, but Ayo was right. Definitely a different race. They closed in on a particular spot to the left, presumably where Kea was taking cover near the giant tree. Then, one of them looked in the direction of the shack.

Carly grabbed Ayo by the arm, dragged her out of the door and beelined for the nearest undergrowth. At the very least, the thick shrubbery would stall the sight of the enemy a bit. The vessel they had come in wasn't too far, they made it there without being blasted. Carly cast a glance over her shoulder and saw that only one was moving in their direction, the rest pursued Kea'chethi, who had crept between the roots of the tree.

Carly rammed the control to close the door after pulled Ayo in, then they crouched into the cockpit. There was no way they'd fly this on their own, as they were unable to even read the language. Besides, it felt kinda foul to leave Kea.

"We have to do something! Don't you have any fighting skills?" Ayo said.

"Well, I like to jump people from behind and strangle them, but all these bastards wear neck rings," Carly said.

"Can't you slip the wire above the rings? They serve to prevent hands, there should be enough room for hooking a wire under their chin, right?"

"Yeah, but assuming I actually get that far, they can just grab me and throw me off. I can't exactly hold these guys steady with my weight. You seriously overestimate our mutant status, cause I can assure you, I have no regenerative abilities, let alone can I grow a shell."

"How about their fingers? Cut those off?"

"Not gonna help. Let's be realistic. We're too small."

Ayo leaned over the panel and looked both at her wristband and the screen. "Jor can get in if I rig—"

The panel before the pilot seat lit up and a familiar yautja voice came through, Nra'tex-ne. Jor translated his question for whether Kea was alright. Apparently, Karga'te had gotten a sudden ominous feeling and refused to go anywhere, so just say she's fine so they could get this over with.

"We're under attack by four badbloods," Ayo said.

On the other end of the line, Karga'te nearly exploded. Nra'tex-ne hissed at him to be quiet and said, "We are a five miles to the north from you, we'll come to meet you."

And he helpfully cut the lines.

There was a loud thud at the door in the back. Their newly appointed attacker was apparently working the door with metal, not wanting to blast a hole in it. Carly was reminded of her own low rate criminal activities : you don't damage the door of the car you want to steal too badly, cause you wanna use it. At the very least, that would give them some time.

Speaking of using the car ...

"Hey, Ayo, I just figured out what we can do. We're standing _in_ our weapon."

**· · · · · · ·**


	21. Moving Pawns

**· · · · · · ·**

"I'm going to pretend to grab a garden tool as weapon, tell Jor to get ready to ram something."

Before Ayo could object, Jor opened the door and Carly was out.

The enemy hunter sprinted for her, she didn't even get halfway to the pitchfork she'd been aiming for. At the sound of the plasma caster, Carly rolled out of the way of the impact. Constantly looking of her back for the next shot, she ran for the tree.

The massive roots had plenty of crawlspaces, but they were dangerously slippery. At least they were as much a problem to her pursuer as they were to her. Rationally she should hide deep, but instead she climbed up, just below the outer layer so at least she had some cover from the bolts. So he followed her into the network.

A quick glance outside showed Carly the vessel had fired up and slowly rose. She slipped out of the roots again, the snarling enemy right on her tail. She dug her nails into the slick moss, ignored a deja vu and pulled up her legs just in time to avoid being grabbed. He noticed too late.

With a loud crash, the vessel rammed into the tree, pinning the yautja into it.

Carly jumped on the wrecked vessel, which stuck at an odd angle. Both tree and machine creaked dangerously, then the engines died. Facing the enemy, she found a bright, glowing bloodbath and gurgling, twitchy excuse for a monster. The plasma caster was as wrecked as the arm it had been on, but the owner still breathed.

With a grin, Carly pulled out her strangle wire. She knelt down to look through the window, where a wide eyed Ayo stood behind the control. Knocking on the glass, she said, "Ayo, Jor, keep it in place for now. I want some revenge."

Ayo gave an absentminded nod, eyes still fixed on the mess that was ahead. There were ribs sticking out and the mask had just fallen off, this was probably the first time the girl had seen this much gore. To Carly though, it was entirely usual by now. She closed the short distance to the monster with a few steps.

This was an entirely unfair fight, just like all yautja liked it: superior technology against something smaller, just to finish it off in a traditional way. She stepped on his hand and heard several cracks. He roared at her, but didn't get far as Carly kicked him in the mandibles. That stunned it just enough for her place her knee on his free arm and wrap her wire around his neck. She slipped it just between chin and neck rings. The mandibles flared at her as he regained orientation, and she glared into the hateful eyes for a moment. Then she slowly pulled the wire tight.

Yautja could go a lot longer without air, but drowning happened at an even rate. His jugular was at the same place as that of a human, once her wire was through the skin she pushed a thumb into the windpipe. In vain, the mandibles snapped at her, but only managed to scratch her shoulder a bit.

Then his arm shot loose and Carly barely swallowed a scream as claws dug into her back and stomach. She let go of the wire and pushed the arm away, stumbling back onto the window.

"Shit!" she spat. "Fine, die the slow way!"

She crawled up and looked around. There was no sign of the other enemies, who had probably gone after Kea'chethi. Well, there was nothing they could do for her if they didn't know where she was.

The vessel's door opened, and Carly swing back inside. The engines revved and it pulled back.

Like a rag doll, the monster fell onto the roots, rolling down the sleek moss till he hit the ground with a tudd. He remained there, choking on its own breath.

"Serves him right," Carly muttered. She hadn't really expected a response, but Ayo gave an uninterpretable sound and covered her mouth. She was still staring at the body.

"Hey, you okay?"

"No!" Ayo said with that strained voice of people on the verge of tears. "I wasn't expecting it to look like this. How can you be so calm?"

"Well, I could give you a lengthy explanation of my experiences with the life in the lower edge of the city, but we've got more violence to do today and I doubt my story would make you feel any better."

"More? This is all freaky. Jor in cyberspace, a psychic in reality and mutants and monsters and alligators and cyborgs and—"

"You're having your breakdown awfully late, you know. All that is old news."

"I'm not having a breakdown," Ayo said through gritted teeth. "I'm just ... " She caught her breath. "This is too coincidental. We're being played with, and the thing doing it could reduce us to a bloody smear if that suits its plans."

She actually had a point in that.

As if accentuating this fear, a screen flickered on and Jormungandr showed them a scan of the surroundings. The colors had been adapted for human eyesight and seemed suspiciously like a chessboard. They were marked near the tree, while further into the forest six figures were split into two groups that tried to corner a single fighter. Karga'te and Nra'tex-ne had joined already? They had to have a better transport than Kea, if that was so.

Well, that just meant they had work left to do. They couldn't spare to lose any of the yautja that were moderately sympathetic towards them.

"So, who are we going to help first? Jor, you can do some more ramming with this vessel, right?"

It confirmed.

"Okay, I'm going to bait one of them. Go close to those who that are fighting Nra'tex-ne, I'll draw them out of the trees. We need him alive more than we need Karga'te or Kea." She cast another glance at the broken enemy, who had stopped moving by now.

Time to loot.

"Hang on a sec," Carly said. She jumped out of the door and went over, crossing a few of the lower roots. The plasma caster was busted, but that didn't matter much.

With some wrenching and pulling, she pried the weapon off the corpse. She also unwound her wire and used it to lop off some dreadlocks, which she stuck in her belt.

"What are you doing?" a suitably disgusted Ayo asked from the open door.

"Sprinkles," Carly said, before running off in the direction Nra'tex-ne was.

She had to cross a few hills and wrestle through the thick undergrowth before she reached the battle scene. For a moment she kept low to see what she'd have after her in a moment.

It was clear Nra'tex-ne spent a lot of his time fighting other yautja than the usual hunter did. In retrospect of what little she knew, Nra'tex-ne wasn't a great hunter and that probably was because he spent more time being a warrior teacher. His enemies were taller, and apparently stronger, but he always was one step ahead of them, predicted every move and using his environment to the fullest.

Their plasma casters were both defect, one she could clearly see burned off. Nra'tex-ne and Karga'te had apparently ambushed them and dealt with that before moving to open combat. Maybe Jor was messing with helmets again.

One of the attackers lagged behind and was injured on the leg; she could guess where Nra'tex-ne got the inspiration for _that_. This was probably the one that would be send to chase her, since he wasn't helping much anymore. That leg injury would give her an advantage if she followed a difficult path back, though she had to account for her own stomach injury. Off course, this depended on them actually wanting to chase her when they had Nra'tex-ne backing away already.

Well, not much other things she could do.

Carly jumped in the open and yelled, "Hey, Nra'tex-ne, can you spare an enemy? I'm bored!"

She made sure to conspicuously sling the plasma caster across her shoulder and that no plants covered her little trophies.

Oh yes, that got their attention alright. Not knowing how she'd killed their buddy, or that she'd done it at all, this probably looked like one of those legends about cheating superhumans conquering yautja. Carly gave in to an urge to laugh maniacally and added, "Cold feet already, guys?"

They probably didn't understand a word what she said, but it got the idiots angry anyway. The weaker one broke off in her direction.

Carly didn't wait a second and turned around, laughter gone in favor of breathing.

She ran back roughly the same way she'd come and found the vessel just behind a hill. Immediately she dove under it, and the vessel raised to ram the hunter.

There was no crunchy sound of impact. Scrambling back to her feet, she saw the yautja had jumped atop the vessel and was looking it over. It gave her a quick look, but had clearly figured out what had killed his friend and didn't find her very interesting anymore.

Still in motion, the vessel reached the top of the hill and tipped higher in an attempt to throw off the hunter, but he held on. There were not much places to go to with all the trees, so it went in reverse back to the garden. Carly had to duck again as it passed over her.

She pursued. The hunter was firmly latched onto the roof and used his wrist blades to pry at the edges of the door, exploiting damage the vessel had suffered from its handshake with the tree. Barely was the gap wide enough or he kicked open the door. Then he was in, barely dodging Jor's attempt to scrape him off at a passing tree. The vessel screeched to a halt, allowing Carly to catch up.

Inside, she found the hunter with his claws around Ayo's throat, ready to spike her on his wristblades. She jumped on the back of the hunter, one arm around the neck and the other tearing off the mask. He swung around and she fell off. Growling, he jabbed his wrist blades at her. She rolled out of the way and tossed the mask at his head.

He deflected with the blades and made a grab for her with his other hand. A fan of choking, apparently. Carly strapped the wire around his wrist and pulled. Skin tore off before the wire hooked between wristbones. Bashing her head against its mandibles, she caused just enough pain to confuse him. Taking this moment, she tied the wire around a trophy hook. Clipping it into the wall, the yautja was less mobile and more furious. It would just be a matter of time before he got loose.

Grabbing Ayo by the arm Carly jumped out of the door, which closed behind them. Carly jammed the broken plasma caster in the open bit and hoped that hunter would be sane enough to not start stabbing at explosives.

Almost at once, there was a crack at the front window. Oh, he was sane enough.

She grabbed a nearby rock, climbed atop the vessel and waited. The moment the yautja broke through the enforced glass, she rammed down on his head. The glass brittled away just slow enough for another attack before she was thrown back. She rolled to the ground, fall caught by the thick shrubbery. Barely had she raised to her feet or the hunter had jumped after her. He staggered slightly on his injured leg and seemed slower, dazed by the earlier attack. Carly backed off and tried not to look to obviously behind him : there was Ayo, who had picked up one of Kea'chethi's gardening tools.

Right when the yautja launched for her, Ayo dove head with a pathetic little cry and a very pointy shovel. Carly couldn't clearly see from this angle, but Ayo had to have done some damage when she jabbed it in his back, because he roared out. Eyes wide, Ayo staggered back and dropped. Carly curled to a ball and rolled away further.

Behind them, the vessel tilted sideways. Injured as he was, the hunter couldn't get out of the way quick enough.

This time, Carly did properly finish off the smashed hunter. There was a gratifying squish as she dove the shovel into its ugly face. And another time, for good measure.

Ayo stood by on shaking knees and didn't look. Carly clapped her on the back and said, "That was awesome. Wanna go brag to the hunters? I'm sure they're done with the others by now."

"You're crazy. We just ..."

"Killed two monsters. That's gotta earn us some brownie points with those assholes."

She shook her head. "Yes, it would ... that's it. Right when we got better, this happens and Jor cooperates without hitch."

"Oh, right, that."

Indeed. She'd heard of badbloods, but apparently they weren't common. And they just showed up conveniently now, so she and Ayo could prove themselves to the warrior valuing tribe? Yeah, fat chance.

"You know, when I was with Jarrod the other day, I did hear Frank complain about Jor wanting hardware stuff done that he had no way of doing as a slave. We can probably expect a promotion."

"They'll make us hunters?"

"More like Tex will try. Well, you should take it. I'm not a tech geek anyway."

"What? Why not both of us?"

"Nah. I'm sure your body has some nifty mutations in store for you, so you'll be able to do that too in the future. Did you know I can hold my breath for three minutes and stay in freezing water? Apparently, that's not something real humans can do, so I can blame the Ash thingy for it. You'll be fine."

"Why wouldn't you want a better life?"

"It's not going to be better," Carly said with a sigh. "I'm abandoning you to a tougher life with more criticism and the potential they'll ask you to kill humans. You've got a better chance to understand Jormungandr, and all I'd be doing is arguing with Tex about his stupid honor code. Trust me, it's better if I stay where I am."

Ayo clenched her teeth and frowned. "Thanks a lot."

She sharply turned around and walked back into the vessel, which had leveled itself again.

"I hear Jor _not_ complaining about my decision," Carly said as she followed her aboard.

"Off course he won't. You're expendable."

Touché.

The vessel sputtered into the rainforest to meet up with the others. Along the way, the found some corpses, none familiar.

They looked pretty beat up, Karga'te limping and being supported by Kea. Carly tried to give an extra hand to help Karga'te climb out, but was rebuked with a snarl. When Kea proved likewise moody, Carly climbed on the roof and ignored everyone.

There was some talk between the three yautja and Ayo, who was questioning them on what exactly had happened. According to Kea'chethi, it was not uncommon for badbloods to try and collect female yautja to breed with. Nra'tex-ne spent more words deriding this in the name of honor than the girl herself did.

Nra'tex-ne and Karga'te had their own vessel, which hadn't taken a beating. They decided to take everyone back home in it, and to just blow up the damaged one. There _might_ be more badbloods who _might_ take parts of it, so _off course_ they weren't going to let them have it even though said badbloods probably knew exactly how the tech worked anyway. Carly was getting to know typical yautja logic and was growing a healthy loathing of it.

When she jumped off the vessel, Nra'tex-ne turned his attention to her, and then gave this satisfied purr she recognized from whenever something went as he wanted to. Oh crap, she realized what she looked like. Blood covered warrior being casually and very not fatally inured, she could virtually see him imagine the glorious battle that hadn't actually happened.

She raised her hands. "I didn't do anything interesting, Tex. I just made him die a little quicker. Ayo got him."

Jor did, but in face of its secrecy, Ayo would get the credit for piloting the vessel. She explained this, but Nra'tex-ne didn't look like he cared. Piloting a vessel was less badass in his book than running around doing stupid things. Unlike her, he had no excuse to engage in open combat with honorless criminals when he had a handy little transport vessel.

"Tex, I mean it. We had a much bigger, effective weapon than you did. Nothing impressive here. Can we go back now? My new family is still sick, I'd like to not lose them too."

"Off course, but after that I want to talk about something with you and her."

Good luck convincing the guy who had failed at killing her and who owed her his life. This was not going to help his unrealistic impression of her as a "hunter in blood".

**· · · · · · ·**


	22. Family Rules

**· · · · · · ·**

"And now he wants to get humans in on the hunt," Meidache told her sister in law. "I just knew it the moment he brought those things aboard!"

"I can see his point. Owing things to prey is pathetic. If they're hunters, it will be less so," Yu'kuyte clattered. "Though it would be preferable not to use to them in the first place."

Uich'ernite yawned and leaned back in her overly ornate chair. "Well, why don't we first see what happens? You know, _before_ we degrade anyone?"

At the words of the matriarch, the others fell silent and paid disproportionate attention to their food.

The group was circling a wide dinner table in what was technically a casual family meeting. Nra'tex-ne, as one of Uich'ernite's blooded sons, had also been invited and was not appreciating how he was being talked about as if absent. He was in no position to vocalize that, though.

Two of his older brothers had wisely kept silent since arrival and methodically cleaned up their plates, not a hard feat since Uich'ernite's kitchen was excellent. Said kitchen was also headed by a handicapped servant whom she was rumored to sleep with. Before that rumor was born, she only had him cook for herself and her children. Now he _always_ cooked for the family meetings. Whether the rumor was true or not, the message was clear : Uich'ernite did whatever she wanted.

Tenk'uche proved to be less wise after a short time, at least as far as Uich'ernite was concerned.

"There have been some other clans that have taken humans off their list to hunt when they proved to be so strong they could best a yautja. It only makes sense to let the best survive and breed. However, we only know of two cases where a blooding mark was assigned, and only one of those involved the human joining the clan, a certain Da'dtou-di. It's safe to say that blooding those not our kind is not a practice endorsed commonly."

"Oh, and what happened to that one lady who did join the clan?" Uich'ernite thrilled.

"Her pack all died, and she only rejoined the clan when a clan of killers reemerged and caused trouble for humans. In the end of it the then still living clan leader removed her mark, and she ceased being a hunter. She never did clearly explain what happened during the time she was missing from the clan, or under what circumstances her pack died. Highly suspicious if you ask me."

Nra'tex-ne frowned at those last words. The implication was that the human had betrayed her pack. "How would her pack all die, yet she survive in a position that allow her to contact the rest of the clan?"

"They were hunting humans, off course. She just rejoined her people."

"That doesn't mean she actually betrayed her pack," he said. He wasn't fooling anyone, not even himself. It was suspicious, because humans had pack loyalty too. How easily would she choose her own kind?

"Maybe not, but it certainly means she wasn't all that interested in walking the Path. Humans do not fit in our culture, even if they have to chance to embrace it."

"Father, with all due respect, that just means that through the entirety of history there has been only one example."

"That means there were bare little worthy of even being given a chance!"

"Every clan has different interpretations of the code. Aren't we trying to separate from the singular interpretation of the old words?"

"The path we walk is the same, regardless of how one walks it. And that's the end of it, Nra'tex-ne!"

He used to get along with his father, he whom had taught him how to follow the Path and the philosophy behind it. Now it appeared there was no saving the past. He dreaded what would happen if he ever found out about the murders committed by Karga'te, and the fact that Nra'tex-ne had kept these a secret.

For now, though, it was not Tenk'uche's decision to even file the request. That belonged to his mother, much to his father's irritation.

Uich'ernite and Tenk'uche were two yautja put together by status and achievement. Uich'ernite was one of the strongest females and Tenk'uche one of the best male fighters. Off course they mated, even if they'd rather rip out each other's guts. They never said a word to indicate this, but it was clear to anyone with a decent nose and plenty of familiar experience.

"Nra'tex-ne tells me his humans are crafty, meant as a compliment. It causes concern to me. Especially in light of what we know of Da'dtou-di," Meidache said.

"Me it causes thorough fuel for chatter. Keep talking, Tenk," Uich'ernite said with a thrill, leaning forward and suddenly ignoring her food.

"Why don't we just drop them off somewhere they can survive? It's not like other clans have not let humans who knew about them walk. As long as they don't get our technology there should not be a problem," Tenk'uche said.

"They _do_ know how to operate our technology," Meidache said. "They are scarily good at it, in fact. They even knew how to drive one of our vessels."

"That doesn't mean they'll be able to replicate our technology," Yu'kuyte said. "Just get rid of them next time we are near a human area."

"Next time we are near a human area, we will be hunting humans. That's not a situation where we want any humans who can hijack our technology to be near. Dying of a crashing ship or suffocation holds no honor," Tenk'uche said.

"You have no evidence these humans would do anything like that," Nra'tex-ne said with a growl.

"Already protective of your new pet project, I see," Tenk'uche said with a derisive thrill.

Yu'kuyte held up her hands. "The next time we hunt humans won't be until another year at least. We have bare little territory not claimed yet by other clans and with our new reputation I doubt there are going to be any more shared territories."

"How old do humans get anyway?"

"Oh, I think living here reduced that quite a bit," Yu'kuyte chuckled. "Maybe half of them will last till they even reach middle age."

Uich'ernite flicked a finger against her plate and thrilled her mandibles loudly. "It would be a shame if the scrappies died before I can see what my son can make out of them."

Nra'tex-ne let a breath of relief go, but the rest of the table barely constrained their irritation.

"They might became decent hunters if they use their small size and speed to their advantage," Yu'kuyte offered. "But with all due respect, mother, I do not see what it matters to you?"

"Trust me, Yu'kuyte , once you're of my age and rank, you'll be praying for diversion. I spend most of my time brawling with other females, screwing males I barely know and often can't stand, and then taking care of obnoxious brats, half of whom aren't going to make it past their hardmeat trial. I don't get to hunt remotely as often as I want to cause of my damn duties. I want to know what's so special about the tiny humans whose skulls I'm supposed to be impressed with."

"You already know," Tenk'uche said. "They killed two badbloods by being _crafty_. Isn't that enough?"

"I wasn't there to see it. Right now, my damn status even prevents me from meeting them in a suitably interesting situation. Humor me, for a change."

Tenk'uche lowered his eyes and stuffed his mouth with more meat than he could chew in one go.

His mother called over a servant, who handed her a small communicating device.

"I do so love how we have technology again. Isn't it awesome I can just talk to this thing instead of going through the tedious routine of asking for an audience and then talking for a few hours straight?"

The moment she spoke to the supreme matriarchs, her tone changed drastically. She purred off a whole lot of reasons why they would want to try this, part spiritual, part subtle threats about how annoying she could be when bored. The latter was taken more serious than the former, if the replies were any indication.

Nra'tex-ne kept his mandibles, but he hated how casual all the ancients rites were taken by some. How could one savor an achievement or a rank if everything was brushed aside as a mundane action, even the great honor of speaking to one of the very leaders of the clan? And image threatening to annoy them!

"We will have our answer tomorrow, I reckon. I have not heard _no_ yet and they really don't want me to keep nagging, let alone do any formal audiences over humans. Sorry to disappoint, Nra'tex-ne. You'll get an answer, but no rite," she said with an amused look and then leaned back. Sometimes he thought she only leaned forward just so she could demonstratively lean back once she won.

Though, for all the dislike, she was in his camp now.

Uich'ernite had not liked him that much early in his life, round about calling him stuffy and too much like his father. That had taken a turn the moment he started working to raise Karga'te and Kea'chethi out of their miserable lot. Now he just couldn't get her to _dis_ like him. If his efforts to help his half brother hadn't already done it, Uich'ernite's change in attitude was what broke the bond he had with his father. He now saw them as similar.

This left him to rely on Uich'ernite for favors, unfortunately. Where he worked to help those disfavored by people who used the code wrong, she worked to just defy the rules for the sake of defiance. He had actually told her to her face he thought this during a daring (and very drunk) moment, and she had cheerfully clattered back that he was defying to code by having such a big mouth and she liked that.

Meidache didn't take that well to him being his mother's favorite either, when usually the favorites were females. There was tension between the two ladies, or rather a persistent ignoring from their mother's side, only increased by the fact that Meidache didn't actually have a problem with her brother. It would be easier for her if she could hate him, but she once admitted that perhaps, gods forbid, the favor might be deserved and not the result of the same craziness that had her mate with a servant.

Ever since Nra'tex-ne had successfully raised Karga'te in status, with the added deficit he had lacked childhood training, Uich'ernite had also regained her good name and left no moment untouched to remind people of her superior judgment.

_"I totally screwed that servant cause I knew he had good genes. Yes, my son's a brat who disrespects the rules, but you don't need to be told he got that from me. Bad mouths are hereditary is not a good argument? Oh, you wanna forbid me to breed now? Let's take it to battle, shall we?"_

Nra'tex-ne was both fearful of and interested in seeing what would happen when Karga'te was blooded and would be allowed to really interact with their mother. Perhaps this was a little more fearful to Meidache and Tenk'uche than to him.

That was far in the future though. For now, he had the more immediate concern of making arrangements for new students. After the dinner's end, the family dispersed and he at once went to his own quarters to arrange for a schedule — he was certain the elders would see reason — and retrieve the helmet he'd need to be able to understand them.

Outside of hunting, his work was in training the unblooded as fighters, a task he enjoyed greatly. Few could spend their _entire_ life on the art of combat, he came as close as possible. The ability to fight and earn the right to procreate was engrained in every creature, it was hard to understand that someone might not want to reach their fullest potential.

Still, it didn't come as a surprise that when he stepped into the cramped servant room and ordered out the other servants, Carly's only reply was a nonchalant, "Still passing."

She didn't even look up from her work in wringing out a slime soaked blanket.

Expected or not, the nonchalance was insulting especially when he had already explained the importance of such an invite.

"You still don't realize the honor of being given this offer as a non-yautja. By our standards, a human would always be too weak, but a matriarch has just given you leeway."

"We understand that," Ayo said. At least she looked at him while talking, though she did not stop working with the herbs and bandages Kea had left her. "However, it will always be just that, leeway."

He could hardly believe it. Carly was stubborn, but Mahad's sister ... wouldn't she be like him, more reasonable and adaptive? Maybe Carly had been talking to her.

"Is this all the answer you two have?"

"You told me to take responsibility for my people. That's what I'm going to do," Carly said, pointing a thumb at Oihana and Melanie, who were sleeping through the not so silent conversation. "Getting lectured by you in preparation for killing my own kind is just about the opposite of that. One day, I plan to be free again and it won't be as a serial killer."

"If not for glory or honor, would it at least serve a purpose in making your life here more bearable?" He gestured to the room. "You want to spend the rest of your life here? Is this any more free than when you are outside?"

"More bearable? More free? At what cost, oh hunter of humans?" Carly finally looked up, brow dropped and eyes glaring.

He almost said that most humans were not worth letting live, but something wasn't quite right about that and the current situation. He thought long enough about his next words for Carly to continue before he could.

"If we were to join your hunts, you'll be asking us to kill more families," Carly said in a low voice. "No thanks, I'm fine here with these people. I'll wait for real freedom with them. You see, I kinda owe them my life, while your kind I only owe the death of my first family."

Nra'tex-ne hit a brick wall as his thought process kept backpedaling to the mental connection she had created between the honor of hunting prey and the blasphemous crime of killing family.

"The hunter lifestyle is a crucial part of our life, as decreed by our gods. It is—" he mechanically recited from memory.

"But you don't have to! So maybe showing off is some hardwired part of your biology. Fine. But does it have to involve death?"

"Death is merely the final result of the challenge. The true essence is the fight preceding it, without which the trophy is worthless." An unpleasant mental image sneaked into his mind of Carly making a trophy out of a yautja, like he turned humans to trophies.

"Then why bother with the death part at all? Can you capture something _alive_? Are you skilled enough to subdue something on your own without making it stop moving, and _then_ get it in front of your wives? And then you can keep it and let it breed to make even stronger future prey."

That made some amount of sense, he had to admit.

Carly stood up and hung the blanket on a hook, then went to turn Melanie a bit more against the wall as she almost rolled out of the bed.

Nra'tex-ne decided to leave before the situation became any more uncomfortable.

"Hey. _I_ never said no. I'll do it," Ayo suddenly said. Like she was saying she'd clean the floor today.

Nra'tex-ne looked back. "I'll let the elders know."

He understood them even less than he had thought.

**· · · · · · ·**


	23. Marsh Tremors

**· · · · · · ·**

His brother was absurdly unfocused. Karga'te knew Nra'tex-ne as the avatar of Focus; that and a few less useful things, like rigid devotion to honor and the annoying tendency to leave cut toenails on the floor for the servants to clean up.

Not only was he not focused, he was doing so in the middle of a hunt.

On top of that, one with a new student.

A little to the left and behind him, Ayo inexpertly crouched on a thick branch. One push would have her topple off and Karga'te felt eager to do just that. Nra'tex-ne hadn't looked back for nearly half a minute, he had a chance.

Just when he raised his hand to hook his spear's end under her sole, Nra'tex-ne turned his head. He glared at his Karga'te and clattered for Ayo's attention. When she looked up, he pointed at her feet and told them to set them further apart. Chance gone and regretted.

A Nra'tex-ne on regular patrol would have made a bad joke or put forth an interesting challenge by now. Was that freaky spirit speaker doing something? He was ready and set to blame that, except he couldn't fathom a use for her making Nra'tex-ne so dull. Was she trying to tone him down to match with Ayo's blandness?

Was she doing anything at all?

Karga'te hadn't really notice anyone acting weird since Bakarne's death, Nra'tex-ne right now aside. There had been times when his brother had been down over something or another and this had turned him less vocal, perhaps there was no brainwashing going on. Perhaps he was just regretting he had only one new deviant student rather than two.

Carly would sorely regret passing up this chance once she realized what life as a slave was like. Nra'tex-ne understood a little better than the usual honored hunter was that life was, because Karga'te had not shut up about it every time he had faltered in his early training. Malnutrition, lack of the right kind of reflexes, all those things Nra'tex-ne had taken for granted. It wouldn't be unlike him to regret Carly going to waste like that.

Crap, had he just been so bored that he'd held a logical debate with himself? Karga'te stifled a groan.

Maybe Ayo was infecting his brother with her blandness. Over the past two weeks Karga'te had spent near her, he had seen his brother try and fail to instill a sense of the glory of the hunt in her. He could have sympathized with Ayo on that front, if not for her utter lack of passion or resentment to her current situation. She was methodical to the hunt. Perhaps some enjoyment of exercise and precision, but she might just as well have enjoyed a race or some other challenge.

Karga'te was just itching to do something violent.

Stare.

Stare at the plains.

Stare at the rainforest.

Stare so much even Ayo grew twitchy.

Stare at the marshlands and its herd of ziou'ra.

It's very slow ziou'ra.

The large bipedal creatures kept a steady pace as they grazed, one step at a time. Considering one leg was the height of a yautja, slow still meant a yautja had to jog to keep up with them. They had been pretty fun to chase when Karga'te was a rookie, though they easily broke their legs when combining their considerable speed with uneven ground.

Nra'tex-ne had been ignoring them for years, citing that the only challenge was their speed and otherwise they were too easily killed. So why was he now staring at them like they were a flock of hardmeat?

"What about them," Karga'te snarled, no longer able to put up with this.

"Eh ... I was thinking about capturing some of them."

Karga'te let loose a whining growl. "Those things? That's child's play, they are so slow! Aren't you always on about worthy challenges?"

"Not kill them. No trophies. Live."

Karga'te and Ayo looked at him with wide, dumbfounded eyes.

"You guys no keep animals. Just last time, you lecture about how only badblood use prey as weapon," Ayo said hesitantly, stammering with poorly pronounced, clatterless words.

"They will not be weapons. They'll be for you and the other humans to ride on."

Karga'te revised his opinion. This actually sounded more dangerous than just killing them.

"Assuming we pull this off, how do you plan on keeping them? We don't have their kind of food in our city, nor a place to stable them. Though maybe we could use that old silo."

His brother's turn had come to stare dumbfounded, apparently waiting for vehement objection.

No, he liked this challenge. Capturing them alive changed the entire picture, since now it no longer was a matter of sneaking up quietly enough. When the plan was to be noticed and not to kill, the inverse of a stealth kill, the picture changed from a simple ranged shot to a small yautja versus a herd of viciously protective giants that could crush a body by _standing on them_.

Karga'te set his net gun to standby and looked around. There were flexible roots in the waters near the mangrove forest at the edge of the marshlands, wandering roots belonging to the trees.

He climbed down the tree, ignoring Nra'tex-ne's questions, and dove under water to retrieve one of them. This would be less of a problem if Nra'tex-ne hadn't insisted on doing things _traditionally_ and go with simpler helmets without vision modes. In the warm water he couldn't see a thing, so he had to move on touch. It took two near breathless tried before he could cut one loose.

By then Nra'tex-ne had already down down, Ayo close behind. They hunched on one of the thick roots overhead.

"We can use these," he said, holding up his prize. Nra'tex-ne took the root and turned it over, then tossed one end in Ayo's direction.

"You go trip this, or something?" she asked.

"Trip _them_. And no. Large things that fall break their bones more easily," Nra'tex-ne said. "Not a good idea."

"They are hollow boned and stumble through the marshes, they can catch themselves well," Karga'te said. "We just need to make sure they don't fall too deep, where there is no water or muck."

Again a surprise, judging by Nra'tex-ne's expression. "How do you know that?"

"I read up on them in the archives. As long as they don't trip, they can carry their own weight for a long stretch. We need to restrain them by the head, they don't have strong neck muscles. We can probably lead them in whatever direction we want if we tie up their heads."

"I wasn't really serious about it, brother."

"Oh really? Fooled me. We've been slinking around in this forest for days doing either _nothing_ or wait for Ayo to catch up. Let's go with this idea."

Nra'tex-ne narrowed his eyes, annoyed with the exaggeration. They actually had done something, Ayo had gotten a few kills in, there had been maneuvering exercises (there was something suspicious about the speed with which these humans caught up, by the way. Way quicker than something with a skill gap should be able to do). For Nra'tex-ne that counted.

Yet all he said was a flat, "So you have been reading."

Karga'te entertained the notion of his brother in an archive, and it was almost as ridiculous as the idea of his own energetic self having the patience for scrolls. True, usually he lacked that, but scrolls were an acceptable diversion when tired and in need of hiding from demanding voices.

"Where do you think I met Ohtremnek?" Karga'te said as he climbed out of the water.

The expression on Nra'tex-ne's face made Karga'te take a snapshot for later.

Ayo laughed, but quickly dove underwater when the brothers shot her a glare. Karga'te had to laugh a little as well, though. Nra'tex-ne could look ridiculously befuddled when presented with baffling concepts.

Turned out the human had a much easier time finding the roots they needed because of her eyesight and small size. Within no time, she had gathered eighteen strong but flexible roots and thinner strings of a length underwater parasite plant. They spent some time on strategy, which none of them excelled in, but they got by. Probably. The results were yet to be seen.

The herd had moved a little further away from the forest, and would need to be driven closer to the edge for this to work.

Ayo said something about "hell chickens" and when asked for explanation, she said they reminded her of a type of monster that had once lived on earth, which spent one phase of its life as worm and two phases as something much like these things. They'd been called hell chickens by people who thought their original monikers were embarrassing.

The ziou'ra had two legs with long, flat nails, and two useless little arms below their torso. Their heads were thick and had a wide mouth that opened vertically to reveal a string of poisonous tendrils, which they normally just used to grab vegetation. Hell probably was a very boring place if they reminded Ayo of that.

The marshlands were their natural environment, which made chasing them a difficulty. Cloaking would not work the moment they got wet, so they had to sneak up on them far more slowly and with greater care than otherwise. The ziou'ra saw in heat and were also more sensitive to tremors in the water than a yautja.

It took nearly three hours before they actually got close without the herd noticing something amiss. Every time they'd failed, the herd had moved on a little in the wrong direction, but eventually they figured out how to use this mild fright to their advantage.

Karga'te grew annoyed with this very soon, but understood they had to get close if they wanted to catch anything. Nra'tex-ne and Ayo were obnoxiously good at the whole patience element.

Using small scare tactics, they herded the pack closer to the mangrove forest and only then did they reveal themselves by leaping up from two sides of the herd. The ziou'ra knew what yautja were all too well, and they dispersed at once.

Nra'tex-ne and Karga'te singled one one particular creature, and once the herd was thin enough, they drove it towards an alcove with near-hit plasma shots. Ayo waited there to close the alcove with their improvised netting of roots. She just barely managed to close it before the ziou'ra barreled out again.

The herd had scattered at this point, allowing Nra'tex-ne and Karga'te to scale one of the thicker trees of the alcove. Their catch was intact, if very frightened. After a moment of spinning around its own axis with surprising agility, it looked back at the entrance, hunched forward a little and braced. Karga'te shot right before it, causing it to startle back.

"So what now? It's already trying to get out."

"It'll need to stand still at least a little if we want to get anything around its neck."

The ziou'ra again prepared to ram the net, and Karga'te shot again. This time, it waited longer before it tried again, at which point it didn't bother bracing. Karga'te shot once more, and now it started looking up and around. They could learn quickly, which would suit them. The books hadn't mentioned anything about intelligence, because off course, this kind of intelligence didn't interest anyone at the tribe.

Karga'te climbed lower and started circling the alcove by leaped through the trees, and the animal followed his movements. Nra'tex-ne decided this was the time to use its relative calm; Karga'te disagreed. He wasn't sure what he himself was doing, but there was some sort of game, a challenge in it. He wanted to see how the creature would respond once it figured out he caused the bolts, yet wasn't going to harm it.

Nra'tex-ne ordered Ayo to take one of the roots and quietly get into the water, waiting for a distraction to swim closer between its legs. Karga'te thought he put too much faith in the abilities of the human, but she actually pulled it off. Nra'tex-ne jumped down the moment she was through, and grabbed the end, swinging it around the head.

He was promptly headbutted into the water, so Karga'te jumped into the enclosure to ram it aside. He barely made it stagger, but Nra'tex-ne had the time to climb out, end of the root still in hand. The root now ran below the left of its tail, across the stomach and around the neck. Nra'tex-ne tied his end to the tree, and they rested for a moment. The ziou'ra tried to struggle, and the root was wearing a little already, but they had a window of time to figure out what to do next. They agreed to try and tie it to their hovercraft.

One should be enough for Ayo to travel, but when Ayo suggested it might be useful to have more for the others, Karga'te was quick to agree. Ziou'ra were pack animals, after all, if kept alone the one would only get depressive. Nra'tex-ne had his hunter's pride, so he did not turn down the challenge when he wasn't even injured. Ayo was sent for the hovercraft, while Nra'tex-ne wanted to see whether they could pull off ensnaring a second one with just the two of them. Now that the herd was still disoriented, they could select one of the wandering creatures.

Due to the heat, the herd had some trouble finding one another back, their sight limited. They kept stomping in the water to signal for one another, which gave Karga'te the idea to simulate this. Nra'tex-ne wasn't fond of it, and Karga'te had to keep repeating it wasn't a hunt anyway, they didn't lose any honor with trickery like this.

It worked.

Too bad they didn't get the enclosure done in time, causing the ziou'ra to try and leap the slagging roots. Its leg got stuck, and next thing they knew it was face forward in the muck. To make it worse, its weight gave it momentum, so it ended up sliding ahead. In the end, its head got stuck under a root.

Ayo _just had_ to arrive at exactly _this_ moment. She very desperately tried not to laugh.

"We'll get another, let it be," Nra'tex-ne said stiffly, as he started to Ayo and the hovercraft.

Karga'te looked over at him and Ayo, hen back at the creature, which was kicking its legs desperately. It would drown soon.

Nra'tex-ne would want to forget this failure as quickly as possible, and there was no honor or point in wasting ammo on killing non-prey.

"Karga'te, move it."

It wasn't really a failure, though. Just more difficult.

Karga'te walked closer, noticed the creature had a paused (exhausted) every few kicks, and dove underwater next time this frame happened. He grabbed for the entangled roots to hold on, drawing closer to the head and the root it was caught under. This was was more difficult to cut, not a flexible root was a solid one. His blades would be busted from the way he treated them right now.

The ziou'ra kept kicking, and now the root became more frail, it broke free. Karga'te still held onto the network of root that was draped around it.

There is a saying that one had to swim along with the river, rather than against it. In the moment the ziou'ra gasped for breath and staggered back, just before he was noticed, Karga'te swung himself onto the animal's back.

The creature shrieked when it noticed him, starting to swing frantically to get him off. Karga'te laid on his stomach and hooked a leg below its tail, both hands grasping the net.

When it veered to the left, he realized it was going to ram him against the nearest tree. In that split second, Karga'te leaned to the right, holding on for life. In this motion, he pulled tight a second root. On reflex he pulled himself up, and kept that root tight. If he crossed this one and the one he'd held onto earlier over its head, he might have a chance.

As it shrieked again, it tried ramming him into a tree to the right. Karga'te pushed himself up, for one dangerous moment leaning only on a knee, and managed to throw the roots across its head. He was threw off and landed against the tree, hard, but when he rolled back on his feet, he saw the roots were still in place.

He was now faced with a furious ziou'ra tried to pierce him to the thick nail at its left leg. He threw himself to the side and stood up quickly, grabbed one of the loose roots and was dragged along as the ziou'ra ran. He barely retained his footing. Once it was back in the plains, it'd be lost, but there was a particularly large root it had to cross before that. It slowed down a little, and in this moment Karga'te set foot on a rock and managed to pull himself on its back again. He grabbed the crossed roots and pulled the head aside with all his power.

In accord with the direction he made it lean, it went left, away from the plains.

Almost into a tree, but hey, he was working on it.

This was the best thrill ever. No weapons, no convenient range, actually being in the disadvantage with the creature, and he had only to be smart and fast. If he didn't pull the head the right way, he might just be squashed against a tree. The ziou'ra had every intent to dispose of him that way now.

In the corner of his eyes, he sometimes saw his brother and Ayo stare at him. Yeah, he had to agree, he was being crazy.

But he was also getting results.

**· · · · · · ·**


	24. Habitat Adaption

**· · · · · · ·**

Melanie was glad to regain the grand art of standing without toppling over and to be able to use this art for things other than running towards pits to throw up in.

Nevertheless, she stayed in the room. Most of her clothing had been ruined by the thick slime and her barely lucid trashing. She resolved to test out whether her strength had increased at the earlier opportunity, because it was really ridiculous she'd be able to claw at her clothes like that. It wasn't normal for a human.

The slimy secretion had receded to nothing but a barely noticeable layer atop her skin. It could have been sweat, but it did a far better job at keeping her cool. Practical as it was, it didn't stop setting off disgust every time she touched anything. The others had it too, she wondered whether they minded as much.

She never asked them, though, because she didn't really want to talk about it with people. All she did was pose the question to Jor.

The slave quarters had communication channels, despite their otherwise primitive build. Jor was gracious enough to give her an overly complicated explanation about superior methylation, that did not merely tell DNA what to be, but which also could alter the DNA and its application though a pseudo RNA like construction that could experiment with what would improve the body's status. It told her to ingest something that contained yautja DNA.

Melanie panicked over this, but in the assuring tone it so rarely used nowadays, it explained this wasn't quite chimerization. There would be adaption on base of example, not true blending of DNA. She would not possible be able to ingest enough DNA to augment every cell in her body. Jor claimed yautja blood was disease free and could lengthen the life of a normal human, promising her marvelous results. This did little to convince her to follow up on the order, so Jor had flatly said she better stay useful.

That was a much more effective persuasion tactic.

During a visit, Kea'chethi had cut herself while filing some plant into stringy pieces for another medicine. Melanie had wiped the drops off the floor and put her fingers in her mouth when Kea didn't look. Aside of dirty floor, it tasted like soap. Painfully base soap. It cut through her tongue so much that even Oihana felt it through aural leaking, if the sudden gasp was any indication. Melanie's tongue had been sore for the next few days.

Melanie also had asked where Jormungandr was. Still in the ship? Yes, it was stuck there. It wanted off, but absolutely not into the Nataeix house. Too primitive. The Hukcha house was by far its preferred destination. Ayo was supposed to get it access once she was ranked enough to be allowed near equipment and had some liberty to wander around. It also planned to get Mahad and Frank moved to that house. If that did not work, stealth methods would be used.

Melanie felt like it was haphazardly pasting together a plan. For all its vast intellect, it couldn't account for everything. Mahad's sister, Ayo, seemed like the biggest piece in the chain (sans the yautja, off course). What little she knew of the girl ran down to her being humorless and without adventure spirit, per Mahad's words in response to why she didn't join. Melanie didn't know what to think of how easily Ayo went along now, she hadn't complained once!

Indulging Jormungandr was dangerous business. Even if they did escape, what if they weren't human enough anymore to live in their own society? What if they became too much like the yautja or whatever thing Jormungandr wanted to turn them into? Even without genetic modifications, the very culture surrounding them was dangerous. It was all too easy to be influenced by ideas, adapting to them when they were too persistent or to compensate on ethics to avoid dissonance. The tricking powers of the Eir family had made her well aware of the mind's dangerous flexibility.

Melanie often feared that perhaps the Eirs were influencing her to trust them, but lately that had become a lesser concern. Their remaining Eir wasn't doing well, if anything that sense of her was a burden in this place. Not once had Oihana really woken up, and during half lucid moments she mumbled fearfully about the details of past murders. Sometimes there was a spasm and her eyes opened wide as she relived a memory of death, or perhaps just a nightmare that combined what she caught from the environment. Melanie could do nothing but watch and be happy that at least she didn't have this. However unpleasant their body's battle with the diseases was — if it was indeed just that — at least she only had to know what the yautja lived like, not live it herself. Perhaps seeing the ailing child was her blessing, because these memories would always be there to say, this is all that the hunters boil down to. The cause of only pain. She resolved for it to stay that way, she would never become one of them.

This resolve became her mental fort. When the dark monotone of the room finally broke by something other than Kea's green glow, she stood up straight, ready to act the part of submissive servant. To survive, and one day get out of here.

The one who entered was a servant from another room, Melanie dimly recognized the scars. He told her and Oihana to come with him, and it took Melanie a lot of haphazard translation due to poor reception, a backhand across the face and apologizing for him to understand Oihana really wasn't being disobedient by not getting up. In the end, Oihana had been forcefully dragged to her feet only to collapse. Only then did the servant accept she was too sick.

The girl was left in a heap on the floor while Melanie was roughly pulled out of the room.

Each family had an extended set of apartments below which their servants were located in a network of smaller rooms. Melanie would have gotten lost if not for being dragged along. During the short trip through the dank passages, she saw a little of the other servants.

They consisted mostly of handicapped yautja, weaklings that nobody wanted to see. Aside of yautja and the humans themselves, there even were a few other species. The most recurring was the native species, from whom they had taken over the planet. She theorized they worshiped the yautja, given what appeared to be miniature temples that had integrated into the halls.

The living quarters of the honored side of society was just as grim and poorly lit as the servant quarters, impeccably clean yet inexplicably tribal. Spaces were far wider and the ceilings higher though, and incense burned thick. It was difficult to breath.

Melanie was told to stop in a circular room with a matching couch and several strange devices scattered across the ground, a few skulls lining the walls and smaller ones with the junk on the floor. Two children were in a corner, half covered under the orange blood of the carcass they were playfully skinning. In another corner whimpered another of the same species. Its only saving grace, for now, was that the little monsters noticed Melanie and abandoned their gory entertainment.

She couldn't help but flinched as they shot at her, though all they did was sniffing and poking. She kept her eyes on the couch and tried her best to stay still.

When her wristband beeped and the door to the left opened, she didn't flinch, she startled. Her heartbeat became impossible to ignore, and she wanted to stay still to avoid offending anyone, but her instincts said otherwise. _Look up, it might be an enemy._ So she looked.

Her eyes were swelling and turning gooey from the incense, it made it difficult to read the tiny screen on her wristband, which wasn't helped by the fact that these quarters had virtually no reception. The blurry transmission from Jor showed her a name : Kso'resede.

This matriarch was particularly bulky with lisbon brown tone that faded into yellow towards the center of her crest and thick beige stripes across her shoulders thinning to the center of her torso. She was wrapped in a gray torn cloak that trailed behind her, held in place by metal bands. The reason for the rips became apparent once Melanie saw the children lunge for her, their sharp claws managed to scratch the yautja's thick hide where there was none of the thick fabric in the way. She knelt down for them and clattered at them in what might be a kind way, but Melanie wasn't amiably disposed to interpret that as much more than basic maternal instinct.

Kso'resede looked up and nodded at Melanie, saying something in her language of guttural groans and clattering, but Melanie couldn't understand even with her wristband. Jor's poor reception just wouldn't do. Melanie tapped her band, shaking her head.

The female curiously tilted her head, then stood up and was before her in a few steps. How quick they could be with their bulk didn't cease to surprise her, Melanie couldn't help but taking a few steps back. The yautja simply reached after her to grab her hand, hunching down in the process so she was at eye level. To Melanie's surprise, she was gentle as she inspected the band. Had to be, she supposed with all these children but that made it none the less a strange experience. The massive fingers tapped the wristband and she said a few words to it, then looked up at Melanie.

She shook her head again. "It doesn't work that way."

Nope, it needed to be spoken close to the intercoms in the walls so that Jor could pick it up more easily. The bands had a sound receptor, but it was very limited.

The yautja let her go, raising her hand to make draw an erratic line in the air while making a sound that sounded rather like electric jolts. Then she shook her head.

She'd apparently concluded the band had to be down on power, and that Melanie had no way to replenish it. Or perhaps that she had no way to replenish it with their own technology. That could either mean she didn't care, or wasn't tech savvy.

By now, her children were dangling at Kso's arms again, begging for her to look at their skinning project. She had a quick look, patted one on the head and blatantly made her overall disinterest clear. Melanie wasn't sure whether she was just poor at being a parent or not interesting in killing, but she stored it away for later.

Kso called her over to a table, where she pulled out thick paper and produced a bone pen and ink, terribly old fashioned material that Melanie had only ever seen lying unused in corners of Bakarne's home. The ink burned into the thick paper a little and thickened, probably allowing it to still be visible in infrared. It probably wasn't ink either, but she had no word for it.

Despite her misgivings about Kso's attitude to technology, she had to admit the female was smart. She managed to expertly communicate through drawings what she wanted, and gave extra information when Melanie expressed confusion.

These quarters were on the downside of the pyramid, which firmly marked this household as conservative (newly inclined families were drawn more silly than the traditional ones). In the gone by centuries where the tribe had abandoned advanced technology, going from the top of the pyramid to the bottom was a nuisance, especially when surrounded by a flock of unruly children (this came in the form of almost cartoony little figures piling their parents). Taking them outside for their daily hunting needs or just being able to send them outside easily was a luxury, at which Kso pointed at the prey at the other end of the room, then at the window.

Melanie guessed too much children were falling to their deaths from climbing the walls and few would want to admit they had clumsy offspring. Nowadays, they had technology to tell them where their children wandered off to and airborne vessels to go where ever, so the areas higher in the pyramids became more popular again.

Kso'resede did not subscribe to this technology. It still put a limit on the healthy exploration needs of children, because they'd know they were being watched and didn't have to be careful what they confronted without their parents ready to back them up. So she wanted Melanie to keep an eye on them, in case something dramatically went wrong. The undertone was that Melanie wasn't a threatening, reprimanding presence that could tap them on the fingers or protect them.

She handed Melanie the pen then, and she drew Nra'tex-ne with a question mark; it wouldn't hurt if Kso picked up a bit of human language along the way.

It wasn't easy, but they eventually communicated that for some strange reason, Nra'tex-ne was late today. This was really unusual. Normally he would take over her children by now, but since he wasn't around, she planned to just send them outside and do something.

Melanie draw herself failing to lift a kid and another question mark, then a flock of kids, hoping to express she could hardly be expected to supervise yautja kids. Kso made a dismissive gesture and crossed away most of the flock. She pointed out the two children with them right now.

Odd, were this all the children she had? Melanie could have sworn she had seen more running around. Perhaps they belonged to the other females.

Kso'resede believed that two yautja children should be no problem. Those belonged a three meter tall monster, not a human half that size.

Kso gave her some cloth and indicated she was to tie it around her neck, lower arms and legs. There was also a small monitor that she was to activate if anything went really wrong, which came accompanied with drawings of what meant an emergency. Said list was frighteningly short. She was only to call in case of a life threatening situation. Broken bones were fine.

Once Kso was gone, she had kids dangling at her arms to drag her along, boy did she need those wraps. They didn't try to consciously hurt her, but Melanie had very much the impression they felt they had a new pet.

Very quickly, Melanie learned a few things.

Yautja children had an exceptional talent to be all over the place. They managed to sneak their tiny claws in the ridges between massive boulders and bricks that made up the older walls and the next moment they'd be twenty meters above ground. Melanie could run decently, but she was no climber, so she spent a lot of time standing at the bottom of the wall. Once, she had to actually catch a kid. She got scratched in gratitude and the kid was up the wall again.

At least, Jor could use the monitor to increase connection. It promptly told her to get familiar with the environment. Melanie suppressed an urge to disobey and an instinct to stay safe. This at least was something that would help. When the children wanted to go outside, she shrugged and went after them. Out the window, through the fear of falling.

There were no vertical walls outside, everything followed the diagonal inclination of the pyramid. These walls were mostly smooth, lacking the bridge ridges, but there were wider ridges for climbing, wide enough for a yautja and so for Melanie. There were also engravings all across the rock, which she could easily hold onto. If she fell and gained too much speed, she would likely die, but she'd just have to make sure the children didn't decide to hang on her right now, and stay away from the other climbers.

This was probably how anthills would feel like to a human. Children were everywhere, and some adults too. She couldn't imagine humans climbing up and down one another's houses, but off course for such agile creatures, walls were as much public domain as streets were to humans.

The pyramids didn't smoothly segment into the ground, there were alcoves and arches standing out, all overgrown by rainforests. After wandering a little further into them, she concluded this had to be a type of garden. At the center of each was a circular terrace, where a number of other children were gathered. She recognized some of the unique pattern of Nra'tex-ne's immediately family ( the sparse stripes and their shape ). Others had a denser pattern, or mottles added, so there were other families too. Several adults were around to supervise them, Melanie made sure to stay far from them.

For the next few hours, Melanie locked down every emotion related to the here and now with dispassionate reason, save resentment. The more they pulled her arms and scratched open her flesh, the easier it was to hate them. She categorized her surroundings, learned to evade claws, found out her eyes were recovering quicker the more she moved, and tried eating some of the fruit. Mechanics of survival, that was all. She could feel if she thought about the others. Ayo would be out there now, doing the same thing. Being blasé about everything. Good tactics. Frank would probably be terrified, she hoped he'd recover before they decided he was useful, while Mahad probably already had made himself useful. Carly and Jarrod, meh, they'd be fine.

Pattern, walk, live, discover the limits of energy. Evolve.

She had just settled in a comfortable pattern of hating everything but the plants when something came to disturb it.

A child had crawled in a creaking tree, which might break judging from the sound of it. With broken language provided by Jor, and gestures she had picked up, she tried to convince the kid to come down. She was utterly ignored, it had more interest for something in the distance.

When other kids also turned their heads in their direction, she figured out something was coming. They adults didn't panic, only one put their helmet on, but that didn't mean it was safe. Oh no, yautja made a lifestyle out of being unsafe. Melanie jumped into the tree and climbed higher.

"You need down," she tried in broken yautja. "Now."

For the first time, the child looked at her, and to her surprise it shook its head.

"Why?" Bracing an arm around the branch, she curled her index finger and tapped her thumb to her middle finger.

The child said something she didn't understand and pointed in the distance. Then it pointed at her and tapped the tree branch.

By now, a vague rustling could be heard in the direction the sound came from. Other children in the vicinity had also started climbing the trees, so Melanie reckoned it really was safe. Or it was an elaborate prank and she'd be pushed in the path of something soon.

She was not in the slightest prepared for the thing that came thundering out of the greenery. It was like an elephant born as a bird, or a bird trying to be an elephant and an insect at the same time. It zig zagged through the trees, bumped against them, turned in frantic circles, but steadily made its way to the center of the garden. The cause for this was ... Ayo?

What the hell?

She had a makeshift set of reigns across its head and was steering it by heavily leaning and pulling to the sides, which involved practically falling off only to sling back on. Bounce, bump, off again, back on, chicken dance, what on earth and alien planets?

Melanie almost fell off her branch as she leaned after the spectacle to get a better look. Just barely she managed to brace all her limbs around the branch. She couldn't help a nervous chuckle.

Seriously, what the hell?

The yautja child stared wide eye after it, then stood up and just jumped to the next branch. Melanie was left to fall as this branch cracked. It didn't fell off squarely, just folded down. Melanie managed not to not fall on her and just slid down to the more leafy part. There, she turned upside down. There was still a four meter drop to the floor, but she had the feeling she'd live.

She let go, and she lived. Pain shot through her, but it was the pain of unused muscles doing too much after too long, not the pain of broken bones.

Jor was bullshitting them, this wasn't just adaption, this was a preexisting instinct for balance. Humans didn't fall on all fours.

Carefully she stood up, trying to figure out what had just happened, when a second spectacle burst through the trees. With a yelp, she leaped back up the tree.

This time, the rider was Karga'te. He had an easier time staying on, but if he did fall off, the animal could use his weight against him.

He also steered the thing towards the center of the garden. Melanie decided to stay put just in case Nra'tex-ne had joined the party.

Though really, she could have guessed he would not have. A little of ten seconds later, hovercraft flew over the trees and landed at the center.

The children had all dropped from the trees and were going there, so Melanie had to join them. Those two she was to watch were probably there already, and she was little a little curious what was going on.

Like everything else here, the central terrace was a lot larger up front than it seemed from the distance. Probably because everything here was so much more massive than she was used to, the slightly less massive looked small in comparison. All of the hovercraft fit on the terrace, along with the gathered children and adults while still leaving plenty of room for the whatever they were.

They'd managed to tie the Whatevers to two of the pillars that lined the terrace; or perhaps those were totems of trophy displays. It was hard to tell what most ornaments here were for.

The brothers and Ayo stood at a distance, talking heatedly with the other adult yautja. Nra'tex-ne tried paying attention to a cloud of children, probably all his own, while growling at another hunter.

When Ayo spotted her, she jogged over. Injuries littered her, and if she was not so dark skinned she probably blue all over. She had a swelling on her face and thigh, and her arms were half red with blood. Yet somehow, she was grinning from ear to ear.

"What's all this?"

"Could ask you the same, why are you outside? You look ill."

"Babysitter duty, and they don't care. Your story?"

Ayo gave her a quick run down of Nra'tex-ne coming up with a crazy idea and Karga'te jumping on said idea in more ways than one.

The creatures were possible mountable with the right saddles, and their build could probably support extra weight. Their vertically opening beaks revealed tendrils and they had lidless black eyes, somewhat like an insect, perhaps a spider. Similar black blobs were on the inside of their legs.

"Tex likes to adopt unusual things, from the looks of it. Did you notice his house even has servants of the local population? Probably can blame Tex for that too."

Melanie nodded numbly while all sorts of messy death scenarios ran through her head. If he expected them to ride these things, he'd expect them to do far more than slink within the relatively safe limits of the house. She made a face.

"Don't worry, from the sound of it we won't be riding for a long time. The others think that using animals as tools is not acceptable, and now they're debating the philosophical details of it," Ayo said, reading from her own wristband. "By the time we've got this time, Karga'te will have achieved something in domesticating them."

"You sound awfully sure."

"That's because I am. Anyway, let's call Carly. Jor?"

While Ayo had to climb a pillar for Jor's reception to improve, Nra'tex-ne socked the hunter he'd been arguing with in the jaw and ordered the others to scram, save his kids. Then he looked for Ayo, spotted her and ordered her to call Carly. Karga'te groaned, and Ayo said a dim, "off course."

As Ayo was done, she climbed down. "Nra'tex-ne let it drop we only really needed two, and then it was obvious he still expects Carly to join them."

Melanie shrugged, but secretly she hoped Carly would keep rejecting.

Carly had the sense to sprint there. Panting heavily, but not as heavily as someone who had just from within the pyramid to here in a minute, she stopped before the group.

"What party am I joining here?" she asked, a weary eye on the injured Ayo and Melanie. She herself had scrapes, but her job involved cleaning and she had less contact with yautja.

Nra'tex-ne stepped before her, and Melanie read along on her wristband.

"I just proved your argument moot. As you can see, wer perfectly capable of getting something living here without killing it. It required a concerted effort and these idiots insisted on starting training right away, but the principle worked."

Carly rolled her eyes. "Fine. Ya'll are pretty damn skilled. Congratulations on missing the point of what I said."

"In all honesty, Karga'te was the one who came up with the exact plan of capture, as he understands the creatures better. Nevertheless, I had no trouble executing the plan. Next time, I might try something more dangerous."

"Still missing the point."

"Am I? You keep deriding the idea of the hunt, but I know you're a warrior and I think you like to have a challenge at hands."

"Not really. I just do what's necessary. Whether it's dusting your damn furniture cause your wives are icky of tech or defending myself against your jolly bastards. But if life was up to me, I'd run a successful company that makes me filthy rich while talking down whatever idiots gets in my way. Exercise is for free time, not work."

Right at the word bastard, he looked really to lurch forward, but Karga'te at the same time abruptly turned away and tried approaching one of the tied creatures, which backed away and howled at him. Nra'tex-ne seemed to realize he had no business being offended about that word.

"What a waste. Whatever your gods have planned for you, it cannot be something so pathetic. You're underestimating yourself," he told Carly with an additional rumble. If Melanie didn't have a translation, she could have sworn he'd been describing her impending death at his hands.

"Dude, you've known me for like a month. I've known myself for twenty six years."

"Make that twenty four or twenty. You were a toddler once," Ayo said.

"Whatever. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in gods making my destiny."

Nra'tex-ne tilted his head, apparently Jor could not find a good word to translate that for him. Melanie closed the distance to Carly and whispered, "Do you really want to tell him that? Have you seen how they live? There's references to their gods practically everywhere!"

"Yeah, dropped by a temple earlier. So what? If I'm gonna lie about it, it's gonna bite later," Carly whispered back.

Nra'tex-ne at that moment reached to take his mask off, evidently curious where the translations were going. It would have to translate, lest Nra'tex-ne bring his helmet to a tech master and they figured out something was fishy.

"I do not believe yours gods, or any other people's gods exist," Carly said, louder this time.

With a sharp click, Nra'tex-ne sat the mask back on his face.

Melanie expected an real outburst this time, but he just stared at her and tilted his head again.

"That explains a lot," he said. Melanie thought she heard something close to relief in his voice. What was going on here?

"Explains what?" Carly said sharply.

"You're standing here in this world, sooner or later you'll have to accept there is a greater destiny at work. For now, you can start here." Melanie was definitely sure she heard satisfaction.

Nra'tex-ne turned away and untied one of the creatures from the pillar, which immediately started jerking away. Its weakness was apparent : it had a fairly thin neck for such a massive head, and could easily be corrected by jerking at the headgear. A relative ease, for a yautja on the ground.

He placed the reigns in Carly's hands and said, "Since you won't hunt, you could do your friend the favor of taming her transport."

The critter off course ran, dragging Carly right off her feet. Karga'te laughed and Nra'tex-ne stopped Ayo from helping. Melanie watched in fascinated horror as Carly ignored her legs tearing and got to her feet. She thew herself aside, towards a pillar and braced herself against it with her legs. The creature's head snapped back and it spun around, desperately trying to pull itself loose. Carly did her best to circle the pillar with her end of the rope without being torn further, only able because the creature didn't want to hurt its own head too much.

Nra'tex-ne gave an approving clatter when she succeeded and went over to her, children in his trail. He unfolded some sort of syringe from his gauntlet and offered it to Carly. Medicine, Melanie guessed. Jor helpfully confirmed and told Melanie that she and the other should try some if they ever got the chance. Might have interesting results.

Ayo apparently got the same message, since she unfolded her gauntlet and held out a similar syringe to Melanie. "It will hurt, but help."

"Thank you," Melanie said as she took the syringe. She could inject herself, at least. It did hurt to the point where she had to scream, as did Carly a little further away.

Melanie took it worse than Carly and slumped to the ground. She stayed there to fight off the feeling, but soon became aware of a rapidly spreading sense of healing. She could practically see her injuries dry up and close, despite the damp atmosphere.

In the middle of this, she missed most of the conversation up ahead, but the interaction became disturbing. Nra'tex-ne actually bothered introducing his children to her, and her to his children. Carly went through it with scathing remarks and more interest in that animal, but that was the point. She went along.

Carly made noise about despising the yautja lifestyle that Jor wouldn't translate, but she didn't put a whole lot of power into hating the yautja themselves from the looks of it.

As far as Melanie was concerned, Nra'tex-ne was one of those who whole heartedly condoned the murders. Out of their five supposed allies, he was worst. While Ghuran was rather flat in position, she was pretty sure Ohtremnek would rather spend his life on science and Kea'chethi rather on plants. Karga'te was volatile, but at least he didn't assign his violence a moral justification.

Nra'tex-ne on the other hand had just decided that Carly's attitude was the result not of deliberate disregard for what he held sacred, but merely disbelief. People who thought disbelief had to be cured could be very dangerous. Ayo with all of her seeming indifference suddenly didn't look like the most susceptible target for corruption anymore.

Nra'tex-ne did eventually stop jerking around and led away the thing somewhere after excusing Ayo, Carly following after him. Karg'ate stayed behind as he tried to adjust the harness on the creature to something more comfortable to it.

Melanie asked Jor to tell her what they'd been talking about while she didn't pay attention. It was asking a favor of an enemy, but she wanted to know what to expect.

Jor obliged.

"So just because you think I should get more spiritual doesn't mean I have to! Let's say there is some sort of divine plan, what if that plan requires me to be the cynical disbeliever I've always been?"

"That's not how divine plans work."

"Oh for crying out loud. Sod off, Tex."

"Are you challenging me?"

"Eh, that depends. If I accidentally just asked you for a death match, I didn't mean that."

"We don't define everything in our lives with violence. No, you sound like you want to argue with me, a blooded warrior who has raised hundreds of young hunters to glory and taught them the ways of life."

"Oh, I can argue about that. Like how useful is what you teach them anyway, aside of the survival bits?"

Ayo read along on her shoulder and asked Karga'te what was going to happen now.

Karga'te thrilled his mandibles and said to Ayo and Melanie, "Lots of lectures till she gives in to be trained. Don't expect him to shut up anytime in the next decade."

"Carly won't."

Karga'te thrilled his mandibles. "Then that's going to give us time off for a long time."

Ayo grinned entirely too comfortable. As if this was a normal social situation.

Melanie decided to see things from the positive side. She was fine with being completely ignored by Nra'tex-ne and the others.

**· · · · · · ·**


	25. Little Late

**· · · · · · ·**

One weeks later, Carly had a new job. She braced her back against the heavy door, forcing it open with every ounce of strength and a sore hope that no one would walk by. Tiny human, massive door, heels in the ridges of the floor, she was sure she looked ridiculous.

It could be worse though. Mere weeks ago, she couldn't have pulled it off.

Imagining how different her whole life could have been if the Ash factor had been kicked into action ... Just find the right kind of stress and become superhuman. Or parahuman, whatever. She could have worked her way out of the underground by becoming a sporter or something, or working on reconstruction. Then again, the greatly skilled had a tendency to die first, so the criminal underworld had taught her. In retrospect, Jor had probably cleaned them up to keep up appearances.

What Jormungandr had been planning with mutated humans was anyone's guess, but for now she was grateful for it. Tous'teri, one of Nra'tex-ne's less present wives, had taken a liking to giving her impossible tasks.

Once the door was open all the way she took a moment to catch her breath, then pushed through the wagon with hides. Her task was to decorate the walls of this celebration hall with hides of conquered beasts. Grinning, she climbed up the first wall with one hide across her shoulder and two more tied to her waist (weight she could carry now). The walls here were as engraved as outside, a method for temperature purposes or something, and she could climb it easily to reach the hooks up there.

After she hung them, she got a good look at their design. They painted with paints and thin metal knots to display certain scenes and symbols to the heat sensitive eye. The hides themselves were brown and the metal dull, but the extra paint colorful; doubtlessly chosen by their subconscious awareness of color.

Sometimes she was tempted to add colors on her own and see whether something felt off; Jarrod claimed he'd painted something obscene on a wall just with color in an important room, and for the past week its residents had been feeling uncomfortable without realizing why. He'd removed it as soon someone with color mode equipped mask threatened to come near.

It was a sore temptation quickly dismissed, since the celebration would be full of those wearing masks. Tex definitely, he virtually always had his mask on his belt, in case he needed to do any talking to humans. While she doubted he'd snitch, it would give Karga'te another excuse to do something like put worms in her food. Even if he'd laugh about it as hard as she did, namely not. Bastard.

Carly finished half the hall while entertaining herself with wild dreams of petty vengeance. By the time she hit the center, the wall suddenly broke open and Carly lost her grip. She fell down hard, barely managing to turn in mid fall and land on her heels. She pushed off at once and rolled out of the way.

Mostly this was annoying, though the pain forced her to lay numb on the ground.

From the northern wall, the massive statue of the healing goddess unfolded. Not merely a carving of rock, it was a more like a giant puppet of stone, folded into the wall until it was time to shine. It was a good thirty meters high, depicting a yautja with long tresses and six arms that slowly folded into position. All of their gods had more than one set of limbs, though this one lacked the horned crests of the more violent deities; the idea behind that was that gods grew spikes, arms, thicker scales as physical proof of their achievements. They still wore armor, off course, cause that was what their creators could identify with even if it made no sense. Hell, even this fertility goddess had some semblance of armor.

The yautja did not believe in letting statues of their gods stand around as decor, they used statues of accomplished warriors for that. The gods had to be hidden, like they usually were. Only during religious times did they reveal themselves, or apparently when someone felt it was funny to do a test run while the human was on the walls. Or maybe, they wanted a reason to scold her, since this cut into the time she needed to get finished.

More irritated, she jumped to her feet, clenched her teeth against the subsiding pain and ran back to the cart.

Three more statues unfolded while she worked, and she didn't finish in the allotted time. Still, she got farther than they expected and didn't have the sore limbs they were counting on. Carly left the hall with just a claw scratch across her face, three stomps in the got and one toss against the wall. Considering many yautja took any opportunity to hurt the humans — off course only when it wouldn't look like they picked on the weaklings — that made this a decent day. Plus, in a few days the yautja would have their solstice festival, and the humans were expected to steer clear. That meant a small holiday.

As she staggered into the servant crawl spaces, Oihana popped out.

"They're coming back through the Uikalan'tes road," Oihana said while sending her a visual map of the road to take. "Want to go meet them?"

"Sure."

The girl had a bit of spring in her legs again, like before. She had taken longest to recover, not because her body was less quick to update its immune system, especially after Melanie had given all their ash factor some yautja blood to work from, but because of the sensory overload. Maybe her body had changed, maybe she had tricks to deal with it better. Either way, she had gotten better at her senses, even if she didn't reach Bakarne's stunning mental clarity and manipulation.

They crept through the building, best to not offend anyone they might come across. Always keep out of offended eyes. Once they reached a window, they simply stepped out. She let Oihana climb on her back and ran down a rain drain.

"Did you win yet?" Oihana asked.

"Nope. Wish you could help me cheat," Carly said. "I'm gonna stop the hypothetical gods thing today, I think."

Nra'tex-ne had taken it very serious when he said he was going to convince Carly. Early on it had just been the same arguments over and over, but that had gotten boring and frustrating. One long afternoon, they had sat down in the jungle to argue about why their pantheons oblivious of each other, Carly indulging the hypothetical existence of gods for the sake of argument. Wouldn't the gods up in the spirit realm have a conflict with the human gods, and those of all other civilizations and variations? To his good sportsmanship, he hadn't flat out denied other species's gods might also exist.

Carly had accessed Jor's vast data for examples, which it had eagerly provided. They had ended up so engrossed with the debate that the topic changed to similarities instead. The were gods of death, and it was a curious thing that the yautja referred to a Black Warrior and not a Cold Warrior when seeing in color was not their default. This led to speculations about color vision once having been common eye sight for yautja, and brought them to the wildly fantastical theory that perhaps yautja and humans originated from the same planet.

At one point Carly realized that Jor had a benefit to Nra'tex-ne wanting to keep the humans around, and it might have given her data that would make for an interesting conservation, rather than the truth. There wasn't much at all she could trust Jormungandr on when it did not concern its immediate needs. Whether it was ancient human mythology or why her soles were getting so thick that she no longer needed shoes, neither really required an honest answer according to Jor.

She'd asked Oihana once whether she couldn't tell anything about the truth with telepathy, but apparently that was too far out even for here. When it came to quasi-magic stuff, Carly had to settle with fancy directions.

The Uikalan'tes road entered the city through arched path, leading right out of the jungle. Ohtremnek came first, having a small floating device that carried the prey of himself only. Traditional as Nra'tex-ne was, probably had insisted to carry it on his own catch, and demanded his students did the same.

True enough, he emerged a little later with a large wormy thing slung across one shoulder. Karga'te was right behind him also with prey (he looked annoyed over having to carry it) with Ayo closing the line. She had a smaller creature that was one a little over a meter long, but still visible exhausted. Karga'te had his hand behind his back, carrying the front end. Nra'tex-ne probably hadn't given permission for that.

When Nra'tex-ne saw her he stopped, which she took as an invitation. Carly slid down the diagonal walls and hopped onto the pavement. There she set down Oihana, who immediately darted to Ohtremnek.

"How'd it go?" Carly asked Nra'tex-ne specifically, preventing him just in time from looking back to see Ayo take full weight of her prey.

"The gods answered my prayer, we found suitable prey very quickly," he said in what she knew what a deliberately taunting tone. He walked again and Carly went to his side.

"Sure they have answered, Tex. Sure.. How about they make a miracle some time soon and do something about getting me and my fellows back home to a nice, cozy human planet?"

"The blessings of gods are not seen in the form of miracles," he said with disdain. "They are felt in the guiding hand of the world around us."

"No evidence, no belief," Carly said. "How often do I have to repeat that?"

"Your idea of evidence is very different from mine. How often do I have to repeat that?"

By which she guessed, more limited in requirements.

"As often is it takes to you explain why you people keep celebrating solstice five days before it actually happens, even though you found out the error. I mean, I get why abandoning technology means you guess wrong, heat sight and all that, but seriously? You know it's wrong! You still keep doing it on the wrong date!"

"How exactly does this related to miracles?"

"I just can't wrap my head around why even if you've got evidence to the contrary, you stick with traditional stuff like miracles and feasts."

"The solstice festival and the nature of miracles are entirely different, the former is the work of mortals and their error, the latter the work of the gods."

"One where you keep doing it on the wrong date despite the evidence, the other where you don't have evidence."

"How can you not even consider the possibility when right ahead of us, your fellow human is using a divine power to talk to one of my fellows, while you need a translator?"

"Psychic powers does not translate to divinity anymore than the ability to hunt translates to the ability to kill everything you encounter."

Behind them, Karga'te groaned loudly. "Not this again! Cut it out. We just got back!"

"How about taking off your helmet or switching off the translator program?" Ayo said.

"But I still have to hear his half," Karga'te snarled in what definitely was a whiny teenager voice, yautja style. Nra'tex-ne sighed and picked up the pace.

Maybe Nra'tex-ne was talking to her because she was the only one willing to talk without cutting off the topic. Ayo was playing it smart, and Carly was sure she could make him stop with disinterest or something else, but it just was so ... fun. Sometimes he actually had decent arguments, and for the rest of the time she just marveled at the so alien thought process (alien in logic, not alien in species). Besides, it was educative, she barely had to look on her wristband anymore for a translation.

"You'd have an easier time convincing me if you didn't look ready to give up on your philosophy half of the time. Maybe you should try something else with your life, not me," she said.

"I am tired of the slow learner you prove tobe, no more than that. Rest assured, I have no interest in any life purpose that I do not already have. The hunt is in my blood, the art of combat in my bones."

"Ooh, so if I give you blood poisoning, your life purpose will become something like sewing or accounting?"

That must have ticked him off, because when Karga'te started snickering, he got whacked on the head. Didn't faze him, he just resumed snickering the moment Nra'tex-ne turned back. Up ahead, Ohtremnek was cracking some joke that made Oihana laugh, or perhaps the other way around. Or maybe Tex was talking to her because he really did have a tendency to surround himself with unorthodox people. Karga'te had brought him in contact with Ohtremnek and Ghuran, he certainly hadn't rejected their presence. All said and done, Carly had her own devoted challenge in speculating on this yautja.

As they reached the end of the road, a group of yautja stepped in their way. Many of them here were yellow with some sort of striped pattern, but one only had the four stripes on the top of his head, akin to Meidache and Nra'tex-ne. She bet there was family blood here, but nothing congenial : their expressions involved flares and glares.

Their apparent leader pushed past Ohtremnek, who just barely pulled Oihana out of the way. He stopped before Nra'tex-ne.

"That is the company you prefer to us nowadays, Nra'tex-ne? We used to see you a lot more in the halls of the honored?"

"I have no need to repeat my stories. My honor is proved in the trophies I claimed, anyone who can't remember isn't worth remembering it to."

"But you have a need to talk to slaves."

The group fanned out, blocking the way entirely. There were six of them, time to shut up. Carly lowered her eyes and her shoulders, taking on a position as little dominant as possible. In response, the probably-related yautja snarled. Too late, they'd seen her nonchalant attitude around Tex.

"They are not slaves, they are our guests."

"Well, they certainly seem to think they are to you, but they know their place. Unlike you. Don't bait them with hope, the elders would not be so foolish as to let them go when they know so much of us."

"Would they not? Dahdtoudi left."

"We are not _that_ clan, brother, nor can we afford any mistakes in face of the homeworld's scrutiny."

"Yes, we have no business letting humans go who know so much about us! That mistake from Dachande never got introduced to how our technology works, unlike these!"

"Eh, most of us don't actually know how to replicate it," Carly muttered. "Being able to push a button doesn't mean we know what makes that button work."

"Who allowed you to speak out of turn?" He made a grab for her throat.

Carly's hand shot forward, grabbed two fingers and pushed them backward. He roared and kicked her instead. She fell to the ground, rolled over and was on her feet again. Her newfound enemy was about to go after her, but Nra'tex-ne stepped in the way.

"You are not on a hunt and they did nothing to offend you, not to forget they are _guests_. You have no business attacking them," he snarled. "I will meet you in combat if you want to dispute that."

Barely had he finished speaking, or Ohtremnek picked up Oihana and set her on his carrier.

"I'll take you on that, Nra'tex-ne. It's been too long since I've seen you put up a decent fight!" the yautja roared.

There was a push in her back as Karga'te ushered her towards Ohtremnek, who pointed at the carrier. Carly didn't need to be told twice. She ran to the carrier, climbing up. Ayo joined them, throwing on her prey. There was very little space for all to stay without sitting on Otter's catch, so Oihana stood up and leaned on their shoulders.

Ohtremnek took off on a jog, avoiding the crowd that was forming. In a city so densely knit with families, it didn't stay a secret for long if two brothers fought. Karga'te stayed behind to witness it, aCarly would have liked to stay as well. Nra'tex-ne was a formidable fighter, if that little bit she'd seen against those badbloods was any indication. But they were out of sight before the fight even started, rounding a corner.

"This is going to be a theme, isn't it?" Ayo asked. "I get a number of shoves and glares and challenges, I would have thought you'd get less trouble as slaves, Carly."

"Officially, we don't take slaves," Ohtremnek said wryly. "The homeworld forbids it. That's why here, we call it accepting services. Usually happens to creatures whose home we wiped and who have nowhere to go."

"There's others? Why haven't we seen them?"

"My tribe tends to have them, if they have skills we find useful. We could not afford it while space traveling, but when we settled here we introduced the trait," Ohtremnek said. "And ..."

Most of them were dead by now, Carly guessed. If not for her mutations and Nra'tex-ne's little clique, they'd have joined them, but they were intact so far.

Well, maybe except for their clothes.

"Hey, Otter, does Ghuran have time today?" Oihana asked on cue. "Can he sew us something more durable?"

**· · · · · · ·**


	26. Needling Definitions

**· · · · · · ·**

Ghuran followed an apprenticeship as a stone worker, but did a side dish of metalworking and even clothing. Skilled at many things, master of none. Ayo had gotten her new clothing and armor from him, and after a call from Ohtremnek he'd decided to expand that favor to everyone. Jarrod along with Mahad and Frank had been called over to assist; Ghuran wasn't shy of exploiting the fact that while he could not request help from ordinary servants due to his low rank, nobody minded if he kept the humans out of the house.

He had a lone work bench way back in the storage rooms of a greater craftsyautja. There, he used his metal tipped claws to engrave dread rings. While every day life asked for no more than simple rings, every now and them ceremony and status allowed more. Ghuran loved the world this gave him, even if he only provided for the entourage rather the center of attention.

Jarrod was less than thrilled.

He did understand that working with Ghuran was about as lucky as he could have gotten. He really did. Nra'tex-ne and Karga'te seemed to attract the more tolerant yautja, so Jarrod didn't have much beating to fear, though Ghuran had little understanding for how much more fragile humans were.

But damn it all, he was a skilled deal and smuggler, he had no business struggling with a needle in a backroom full of junk. They had no equipment for mass production of clothes, and probably wouldn't have had it even if they were more interested in clothing. Every method to produce clothes was primitive beyond imagination. Somewhere in the past hour, he'd pinched his hand enough that the wall leeches started an exodus in his general direction.

The click of the door was a welcome distraction, followed by the rustle of a small person slipping past the mosquito nets. Melanie slipped in, sporting new wounds and clutching her chest with the remnants of her shirt. Her pants weren't in much better shape. It had been long since he'd seen her, usually he sent over the new clothes because they were not meant to meet.

He stood up to hand her a bit of discarded curtain, which she quickly wrapped around herself. Jarrod picked up the tattered shirt.

"What happened?" he asked.

"The kids thought I was hiding deformities," she muttered. "Are you doing alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"Your hair's gotten worse."

Oh, that. His hair was rapidly turning gray and his skin became thinner, more wrinkly, not unlike Carly. Sharpening cheek bones, gnarlier hands. He didn't particularly feel weaker, but there were undeniable signs of aging. He now knew an explanation for that and didn't like it one bit.

"I wouldn't if I could refuse. Hey, I don't see you turning gray. So we're all gonna have different effects?"

"I think we should stop assuming it's just ... genes. It's too complex. Did you hear that Carly is starting to be able to imitate yautja tongue? Ayo also has the first vocal mutations ... our bodies aren't just adapting, there's some sort of mechanism that can reason beyond ..." She breathed out deeply and hid her face behind her hand, leaning heavily on the nearby table. "Sooner or later, they're going to notice we aren't just humans."

Her shoulders shook, Jarrod looked away awkwardly. "What kind of mutations are you getting then? What did they notice?"

"I don't know," she said in a strangled voice. "Maybe they see or smell something, but I don't. Maybe it's just cause they don't get why we cover us up so much."

"Do ... do you think they're going to hunt us if we get too strong or weird?"

He realized it was the wrong thing to say when Melanie tensed up.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to spook you."

"Heh ... spook? I can't be more spooked than I already am. Why is this happening to us?"

He knew better than to answer that. They knew pretty well why, being the scraps of a plot by an AI with devious plans. Melanie continued without prompt, her voice soaked with anger.

"We're only here because Meidache and her mother are amused. If we become something troublesome, that little tolerance will be gone."

"I'll take that as a yes," he said.

"Yes," she echoed, broken toned and smiling hopelessly.

"So, uhm ... maybe we should try making you something new ..."

"We're all getting new clothing. Jor said so. Also said we are to be grateful for it and not let Ghuran get any wild ideas that might cost us movement rights. The other should be here soon."

"Good ... uhm, ... I'm going to have to take some measurements. I don't think I can do that without ..."

"Ask Ghuran to make scans with his helmet," she said. "I'm not ready to drop my modesty just because we're here."

They managed to pry Ghuran from his precision work for long enough to find Melanie some healing liquid in the mess; this was more to cover up the generation that was already starting than an actual need. While Melanie howled in pain at the injection, Ghuran made a scan and gave Jarrod the numbers he needed.

Ohtremnek strolled in not much later, followed by Ayo and Oihana, the latter whom hung like a potato sack under his arm. You'd think he had a pet he didn't know how to handle, the way he carried her around. The girl seemed to think it was funny, and maybe she knew better with that freaky power of hers, but Jarrod couldn't shake the impression. Once she was set down, she ran to a corner and sat there cross legged, waiting as a spectator and a good little pet.

Ayo gave a curt nod to Ghuran and Jarrod before joining Melanie. They quietly spoke about what clothing she should get, particularly something that'd make periods easier. Jarrod would've responded with exaggerated disgust in the past, now he didn't care. In a society dominated by females there was no stigma against acknowledging the existence of periods anymore than it was taboo to say one needed to take a shit. This shop even had a section especially for clothing articles for that little issue.

Ayo herself already had new clothes and a lot of gold coating over the metal parts, just for kicks. Ghuran had taken up her requests for particular details with glee, as it involved unusual creativity on his part, though he was confused as to why the gold rather than some other soft metal. Ayo had put his mask on his face with the light setting on. Yautja had no interest in beauty, but Jarrod had seen how Ghuran went to work on that order, light setting on the entire time. They _should_ have a word for beauty, Jarrod thought. Maybe they'd have something else to do in life but kill.

Mahad and Frank came in next, the latter leaning on the former's shoulder. Frank was still in poor shape, suffering from about three diseases and an infection. When Jarrod wasn't working here or running some malicious random errand, he was taking care of Frank. Mahad often had no energy left for that; his mind made him adept at using technology and he was employed far more. They too had their share of ruined jeans, shirts and the complimentary scratches and bruises. Most of them were small sized; at least Mahad didn't have to do any babysitting. Melanie had both luck and misfortune with Kso's attention; Kso was perhaps the most forgiving of Nra'tex-ne's wives but her children were ... unpopular due to her lax attitude. They were spoiled and entitled.

Karga'te came in alone and made some degrading remarks about how the workspace had gotten even stuffier with more ridiculous things. Ghuran never took it serious, or at least ignored it.

Neither Carly nor Nra'tex-ne had arrived, which started to worry Jarrod, so he took a risk and asked the irritable little brother.

"Karga'te, where is your brother?"

Karga'te rattled something about a jehdin-jehdin, which was a one on one battle if Jarrod recalled right. Not uncommon for yautja, violent as they were. You'd think a civilization this advanced would have gotten over it, not even down in Cable Lock did people fight each other with such frequency.

"Any idea where Carly is?"

"Watching."

"What? Where?"

"Right out the door. She's got this far sight thingy," Karga'te said, curling a hand as if he held a binocular and making a confused face.

Jarrod didn't need more of an excuse to get rid of the needle. Carefully he put it down in a way that left the thread tense, he didn't want to redraw it once he got back. He excused himself from Ghuran, who wasn't happy with him running off but was too busy making sure Karga'te would stop touching that unfinished work of art, thank you very much.

In one of the hall windows sat Carly, looking through a scrappy telescope. When she heard Jarrod approach, she looked up briefly. Then she returned to staring.

"Took a while to find some decent glass, but it works like a charm."

"Why didn't you come in?"

"Duh, I'd miss the fight. Nra'tex-ne is totally owning one of brothers. Look at this!" She didn't actually hand the item so he could take a look.

"Waaa?"

"Nobody told you? We ran into some jerks, one of whom was an older brother of Nra'tex-ne. Challenges ensues and now they're on the terrain down there, duking it out. I've got a great spot here."

Jarrod stood at her side and looked down. All he saw were some tiny figures, though it was unusual he could tell them apart at all at this distance.

"Tex, the poor sucker, thinks he's actually in a fair fight, but his brother is cheating the hell out of it. Or he would have, if our little mindfucker wasn't busy giving him hunches about how to dodge before any cheats can be put into work. ... it's bloody glorious, that asshole's getting owned."

"Wait, that's what she's doing?"

"Yep. Only time those two will be in the same room and ignoring one another. Otter knows. Don't tell Ghuran or Kea though, and especially not Tex."

"Carly, what if they notice that Nra'tex-ne usually isn't this good a fighter, without enhancement?"

"Oh, don't worry, he is good. They'll just call this a — yes, break another mandible! — better day or something. Or maybe just a worse day for the jerk."

Jarrod made a face. "Why are you cheering for him?"

"As an unrelenting underworld girl, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't root for the lesser evil ... who, by the way, just won." With a huge grin she lowered the telescope, and jumped of the windowsill. "So, I hear we're getting new clothes from _you_?"

"Yeah, I do this when Meidache wants me out of the house, which is whenever she's got a soirée, and that happens a lot. I stink, she says. Ghuran's got work for me."

"Neat," she said with a clatter that no human mouth should produce. Not the only thing she copied from them. She gave him a friendly hit on the back. "Why so gloomy?"

"Nothing... just that I'm not sure what I can do. There are no templates here for anything. Nobody here is interested in complex clothing. Even the higher up females only throw on a simple robe if they're dealing with claw happy toddlers."

"The priestesses wear fancy stuff, I just saw some this morning."

"Like they'd lend me a template."

"Got a point."

They went back in. Jarrod tried not to remark on why she thought it was more important to watch that damn fight when they hadn't even seen each other in two weeks and there was no telling when they'd see each other again.

Carly blurted loud, cheery hello to the others and whistled as she looked around.

Ghuran's room was filled with odd fabrications. Most of it was useless metal work, bent and molten into strange shapes. There was jewelry lying around that never would be worn, devices that would never work. When Jarrod had stepped in here the first time it had been something out of yet another world, almost surreal (now it was just cramped and annoying). Some people would probably call it art, and judging by Melanie's enrapture by an metallic xenomorph queen, some of those people were here.

"So ... what of this stuff is wearable and what isn't?" Carly asked, making a face at a weapon band.

He snickered. Yautja did have a preference for wearing metal more than clothing.

He led her to his working spot, which was on a thick fur on the ground surrounded by scrap and bits. The only real technology here was a projection device that created a holographic form. Switching it on, he found the details of Melanie downloaded already. Now he'd have to be creative.

Carly dropped down on the fur and said, "So what about the local fashion styles?"

"I'm _not_ going to go around in a loin cloth," Jarrod said. "I'm not supposed to screw anyway, so I have no reason to show off. What, you wanna?"

Carly made a face. "I want to get as little scratches and bruises as possible, so I'll take more clothes and evolve to deal with the heat. But we could do the neckrings. I know a few jerks who just love to grabs necks."

She made an effort to be helpful, at least. Stitching wasn't an uncommon skill down in the Ghilsaer netherworld, though that was a different thing than actually making clothing and fashion.

Oihana wasn't in her spot anymore, hanging around a wall with things up for repair. She was telling Ohtremnek all sorts of things about their owners, he might be double checking them considering he was typing rapidly on his wrist band. She looked tired, but was smiling. He almost missed the fact that Frank stood on Ohtremnek's other side. Jarrod felt a ping of sympathy for the boy, the one who had least options on making himself useful. A hardware expert in an alien world were none were interested in tutoring him.

Jarrod went to work, taking into account all the queasy details and didn't bat much of an eye when Ayo explained cup sizes. That was another thing he'd needed to get used to in this society, there wasn't a taboo either against female chests. Boobs weren't such a big deal anymore, particularly not in the context of their distinctly undesirable local population.

Ghuran agreed on the neck ring idea and would take care of them, Jarrod was in charge of the hides pants would be made of. Ghuran suggested some extra things, like getting Mahad something to match Ayo. Carly wanted an extra jacket with padding on the back, since her shoulderblades and spine hurt from all the climbing she had to do. Melanie suggested the pain might come from mutations, but Carly wanted the jacket anyway. Oihana decided it was time to pull out the cloth paint on the long shirt she'd be wearing; Jarrod barely grasped normal sized shirts and wasn't ready to try downsizing for a child. That was for later.

It took crude thread and two hours, but he managed to get something basic done for Carly and Melanie. In another hour, he conjured up some lower arm guards and then he was out of the gray leather, lest the others had nothing. The rest was improvised with scraps so she ended up with scrappy gloves. Belts there were plenty, in all sizes. The tribe was fond of wide belt, a custom originally from the females — stomach kicks were a favorite cause it cause damage the womb — which the males had copied.

The whole group hung out without being called, Jarrod started to suspect it was an effort to hide. He asked Oihana eventually, she told him the two brothers had been called before their mother cause the fathers had made issue about the whole fight. Yes, they were hiding out here, just a little. Just in case any others got the idea to pick on humans now Nra'tex-ne was in dubious territory.

Nra'tex-ne arrived four hours after the others, by which time Jarrod had gotten around to making improvements in response to complaints.

"You better have won, brother!" Karga'te hollered.

Nra'tex-ne thrilled his mandibles, which Jarrod recognized as low laughter.

"I did," he said proudly. Karga'te slapped him on the back and Ghuran took a moment from his work to do the same, before asking what the hell was going on. Nra'tex-ne gave a lengthy speech in yautjan, which was met with derisive remarks about older family members by Karga'te. Nra'tex-ne didn't look too happy with that, but let his little brother have a time.

Nra'tex-ne didn't quite seem to grasp everyone here was hiding, and nobody felt like explaining. Jarrod had picked up from Carly that this particular yautja was very clingy to his idea of his tribe as honorable people, not particularly open to the finer details of another cultural approach.

He displayed exactly that when he skeptically looked at the clothing that Jarrod was resewing (Frank's shirt was too wide for his narrow frame, he tried taking it in).

"Why do you humans even wear so much?" Nra'tex-ne asked.

"Warmth and protection. Why do you guys wear so little? Seriously, tell me, is there some mystical meaning to dressing like space sluts?" Carly said before Jarrod had a chance to respond.

Nra'tex-ne's reply was drowned out by Karga'te dropped his head against the nearest wall and roaring. Jarrod didn't need a translator or alien experience to know frustration when he saw it.

"Carly, maybe you should go somewhere else? We'll go on here," Melanie said tensely.

"Yeah, sure." Without taking her eyes of Nra'tex-ne, Carly walked away. An annoyed Nra'tex-ne followed.

"This is going to take a while," Oihana told Jarrod.

"What do you mean?"

"They really eager to try and convert each other."

Come again? He didn't bother saying it out loud, but Oihana caught on.

"That's why Carly is speeding along with their language. Lots of bickering."

He shot a questioning look at Ayo, who shrugged. "I'm just in training because otherwise, Jormungandr might decide to get rid of us. I talk as little as possible. Your cousin can't keep her mouth shut, so she's talked to."

"Frank, I'll be back in a bit," Jarrod said. He stood up, walking over to where Carly and Nra'tex-ne were talking.

They were leaning on statue of a ziou'ra, or maybe it was a table. Sometimes Ghuran's works were hard to understand.

"I'm just saying, you guys have faster than light travel, invisibility tech, plasma casters, insta healing medicine, yet you limit yourself to hunting only in warm areas cause the cold makes you slow? You people can't wrap your heads around wearing clothing to keep yourselves warm? I bet you could make better clothing than humans, and we already got stuff that can withstand volcanic heat and arctic cold. Look at how tiny the area of any given planet is that you cover!"

"Funny, I remember you complaining about hunting, and now you're recommending a way to _expand_ our territory?"

"Are you kidding? Off course not, you're just gonna murder more innocent people. I'm counting on the stifling rigidity of your society to not listen to you if I convince _you_. I just want you to acknowledge something stupid when you see it. By the way, nice dodge of the question."

"Stifling rigidity? We've thrived for thousands of years and have reached the peak of our civilization, what should we advance to?"

"Yes, _stifling rigidity_. Your society is _not_ advancing or you wouldn't be so conservative about everything that ain't the glory of the hunt."

"Oh, is that so? We yautja are built for the hunt, and our society allows us to embrace that purpose. Yours only limits you in aspiring to what you should be, with your pursuit of money and abstract power. We have true freedom."

"That would hold a little more ground if we weren't leaning on Ghuran's forbidden art project, which he modeled after ... oh, look, is that one of those space chickens that your little brother likes taming? Oh, and what about that whole science house that you've got one pyramid away, who were being persecuted cause they weren't hunty enough?"

Nra'tex-ne tapped the top of the table thing with his claws and said, "This is just some odd pastime, it doesn't replace the thrill of the hunt. We gotta fill the rest of the time with something."

"Notice how Ghuran doesn't display a single skull here?"

Nra'tex-ne was about to rebuke when he realized where he was and that yes, there were no skulls. Ghuran was openly staring at him and Ohtremnek did the same more covertly. Jarrod wasn't good enough at reading yautja faces to understand what put Nra'tex-ne in his place, but something did.

"You are just as rigid in ignoring the benefits of adapting to our customs, as long as you live here," he quietly said. Carly probably would have thrown her hands in the air and hollered if she actually was so rigid she didn't learn anything. She just had a smug smile and started to argue that perhaps if Nra'tex-ne went on solo hunts and spread out his territory, he could be more picky about who he killed. Actual assassins, perhaps, or terrorists?

"I can't believe you're trying to give him ideas," Jarrod said.

Carly looked over her shoulder and finally noticed him standing there.

"He isn't—"

"You're sick," he said. Spinning on his heels, he marched out of the room.

"Hey!" Carly ran over him and caught up to him in the hall.

"Sick? He's not going to stop anyway! What's sick about making him target the worst of society!"

" _We_ were amongst the worst of society! Now you're ... we can't become like them!"

"What is your problem? You want me to just lock up and play slave? I'm already doing that, Jarrod. Excuse me for liking a little company who doesn't want that."

"You have us, don't you?"

"Ayo, Melanie and Oihana are children, I've got like ten years on them at least. You're in another part of the freaking pyramid and Jor only lets us talk if it serves it and grandma is dead! I can't really talk with anyone and it's driving me nuts!"

And that would be why Carly tried punishing others with a silent treatment, she so hated it herself. Now she glared at him, and he realized she might stop talking soon. When she turned away, he grabbed her by the ponytail.

"Wait, listen ... I'm sorry. But I'm worried about you. That monster could take your head off if you offend him too much."

"He won't. He doesn't classify me as prey anymore. You should listen to us talk some time ... he gets by by considering honorless humans as animals."

Jarrod sighed. "As long as you're not going to believe him."

She reached behind his head and pulled his own ponytail.

"He's going to have to come a long way with his silly arguments. I don't have to be a genetic human to believe humans have rights, but he needs to be a yautja to justify himself."

**· · · · · · ·**


	27. Rhythmic Attention

**· · · · · · ·**

There were ... issues regarding the ziou'ra. Off course. Karga'te had his hands in it so it couldn't do anything but go awry. His little brother had a natural knack for things going awry.

Nra'tex-ne had arranged for them to stay in an abandoned silo north of the city. Once this place stored hardmeat eggs and hosts, but now spacefaring was reintroduced, they had moved this to another planet. Claiming the silo was easy, none cared for it. The damp space was perfect for the moisture-loving ziou'ra, Karga'te claimed, chuckling all the time.

By the gods, he should have asked what that was about.

As it turned out, the beasts really, really liked the dank space. Their natural predators were subterranean and couldn't bypass rock; the second stage of said predator saw in heat and would hardly see a thing in here. On top of that, their food was handed on a silver platter and they had nothing to do but fuck until the silo overcrowded.

Karga'te dealt with it. Like, he really dealt with it. More food? He struck bargains for scraps and borrowed vessels for transport. He trained the infants from the get go.

Once, a newly appointed Elder had been struck by 'inspiration of advance'. This caused him to stuff three classes of yautja kids with differing skill levels together, forcing Nra'tex-ne to teach fifty at once. It had lasted for less than two days before the chaos become so bad that complaints forced the Elder to reverse the order. A mere seven ziou'ra made that situation look tame. How in the world did Karga'te — the one that had no patience for a theoretical lesson, who thought the temple rituals were the most boring things ever — have the patience to deal with over thirty that without killing at least one?

Maybe he just liked to have an excuse to ditch afternoon training. Nra'tex-ne would have punished him for it, but he couldn't exactly go up to Meidache and say he had started a problem and needed someone to exterminate a herd of ziou'ra in a silo. Not so soon after what had happened in the city and with his other brother.

Ayo missed training more often as well, helping Karga'te instead. She got a hang of riding, but that was little use for getting to better hunting ground. She had to be back within a certain time. To her, this was just fine and dandy. Sometimes Nra'tex-ne just wanted to roar her an earful about her lack of appreciation for the hunt, but would she care? Probably not. Just about one thing had held her interest as long as he'd known her : getting aboard an advanced ship, especially access to a good computer. No doubt she wanted to look at the maps to find out the nearest human settlement and how to get there. He got the impression she only took apprenticeship to find a way to leave.

He'd hoped for better, that the humans would learn to see the value of the Path. Yet every time he stepped into that silo, he heard their strange laughter and knew they were only happy when they were away from the yautja. Carly just as much, and that was the most disappointing. The taming wasn't her job, but she helped out with the feeding and cleaning, chatting up with who ever else was there. She smelled of manure all too often, and this didn't bother her.

The others were children, but she was an adult, the eldest female even. She should be able to understand that life needed more meaning than getting one's immediate needs taken care of. He himself had hated those blasphemous times of doubt, back on their planet. How anyone could spend their entire life believing in nothing and be fine with it was beyond him.

That was why he kept going there. The fact she kept talking to him gave him some hope of knocking sense into her, but then she'd shoot down an argument ...

"In the afterlife—" he tried, leaning over a pit's edge.

"Stick with arguments within my realm. You're trying to convince me, I'm not trying to convince you. You should realize you're not going to get anywhere with arguments I don't believe in."

Carly pulled up one of the newly hatched ziou'ra, holding its kicking legs away from her as she moved it to another of the makeshift enclosures. She kicked open the wooden door, which fell over. The thing was rotting.

"Ghuran! Door!"

From the other side of the silo, Ghuran roared that he was too busy.

She climbed out, shoved the hatchling into Nra'tex-ne's arms and jumped back in. Hooking her fingers below the door, she pulled it up.

"I don't see what the point of any life is if you expect only void in the end. What keeps you even going?" he asked.

"Uh, this life? I'm kinda fond of it," Carly said. The door slammed back into the hole. She smirked and was about to secure it when the door fell to the other side. "A very limited fondness, right now."

Nra'tex-ne sighed. "Sometimes I wonder what even keeps you humans alive, if there's nothing to work for."

"Oh, right, because your Path works so great. That's why you don't get wars with killer clans who discard the code. That's why you don't feel bad when you have to kill others who think you strayed off the path."

"That wasn't a normal situation!"

"I bet you Karga'te would do it again. And if he doesn't, I'll do it. Be proud, because you and your people are influencing me. Day by day, I'm more comfortable with the idea of murdering people who are not attacking me," she said, pulling down the fabric around her lower arm. Long wounds ran there, closed but fresh. "They're really persuasive."

She waited for him to respond, but not long. "Ghuran, your ass here now!" she hollered as she climbed out of the pit and marched to him.

Nra'tex-ne looked for somewhere to lose the hatchling. When Karga'te walked by, he shoved it in his arms.

With an irritated thrill, his brother held it with the legs down. "Held them like this, so they fall on their legs if they struggle loose. If they fall on their back, they might hurt their eyes."

Nra'tex-ne just growled. Karga'te ignored it as he scratched the thing's neck, thrilling. The hatchling calmed down, and Nra'tex-ne saw a stranger before him.

Carly returned with Ghuran in tow and one weird device under her arm. She held it away from Ghuran, when he passed by she moved it to the other side. The method of making him cooperate amused Nra'tex-ne, even if taking a device hostage was low.

Ghuran went to fixing the door while Karga'te tied the hatchling to a leash and took it for an impromptu obedience training walk. Another effective but low practice. If only he had that much dedication towards the code.

If one took the honor away, there wasn't any spiritual difference between yautja and human.

When seeing humans from a distance, caked in clothing, it was easy to think of them as another prey species. When up close, hearing her express opinions — wrong opinions, but intelligently spoken — and knowing them to posses a sense of right even if it lacked the strappings ... they weren't that different.

Though ... compared to other things in the universe, even on this planet, humans were eerily like yautja in physical form. Two eyes looking ahead, two legs, arms, similar digestive systems, fingers, ears, sense of scent, the same reproductive methods.

After having acknowledged this though and taking his time to consider what its heretical direction said about himself, he went to dunk his head into cold water.

That night, Carly plopped down on her bunk and groaned. The morning had started poorly when she had learned that looking too long at yautja could offend them. The wounds from the ensuing maiming were healing and would soon be gone, but that didn't mean it hurt less to be cut. She'd escaped to the silo later in the day, only for Nra'tex-ne to come by with another theological debate. He could go through the day without constantly fearing for his life, spoiled bastard. As if she didn't have anything bigger on her mind than hypothetical afterlife.

Oihana was asleep, but Ayo had hunched up on her own bed, transfixed in something digital. She wouldn't like the disturbance, but there was something Carly needed to understand.

She sat up and asked Ayo, "What's his problem?"

"Who?"

"Nra'tex-ne. The conversion thing. Help me out, Ayo. Why is he more obnoxious to me than to you?"

"His problem's the same as that of any human who can't separate morality from religion," Melanie piped up from the door. She dragged herself in and quietly climbed under her blanket, as if she hadn't said anything weighty at all.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Carly asked.

Melanie's head peeked from below the blanket, giving Carly a flat look. Yeah, really, now?

"I just want to know why he hasn't given up yet," Carly muttered.

"Fine," Melanie said. "Disregard misinterpretation for a sec. With humans, love, harmony and compassion is a central theme of many religions. Even our honor based cultures run down to a unified social order and an accent on families. For these guys, the central theme is not love but honor. Plus, they only recently went to a family structure by evolutionary standards. And you're running round doing a lot of stuff that he can only explain as fueled by some honor that simply lacks a conscious philosophy. Now let me sleep."

"Ha! I have honor? Is he blind?"

Melanie groaned and pulled the blanket over her head.

Ayo slipped off her bed and sat on Carly's. She whispered, "You treated his injury way back then. He saw you doing the honorable thing in helping a fallen warrior and doesn't consider the context. Mercy is a concept that exists both in our religious streams, albeit fueled by different things. You keep doing things like that. You look after a child not yours, you took his advice on becoming the spokesperson for us, you stay to fight for Kea'chethi instead of hiding—"

"Nah, they'd already spotted us."

"— and most importantly, you won't shut up denying it. I just nod and act as blasé as possible. Lectures aside, Tex have less actual conversation than I and Karga'te. I give him no hook."

"Maybe I should try getting it through his thick skull that trying to convert someone whom he tried to kill isn't gonna work that way. I'd like, have to go insane to start ignoring that," Carly spat. Melanie made a whining sound, too shrill to be human. It would have freaked Carly out if her own voice hadn't been evolving.

Ayo continued in an even softer whisper. "He tried to kill you because he had learned that humans are honorless lowlife, that asking them to keep quiet isn't an option for those who have no honor. He had every reason to believe you'd jeopardize his people. Now he just sees you as exception and thinks that when you are raised to honor," Ayo said with air quotes, "that you'll realize the rest of humanity is lowlife anyway. Try understanding that."

"Why are you playing devil's advocate anyway, hmm?"

"Because he's one of the few yautja that have an ounce of respect for us, and I don't want you to jeopardize us by antagonizing him," Ayo said. "It would help us if he liked you a little more. You can still take that offer to become a hunter. I'm sure I can find a way for us to escape before it ever gets to hunting humans. All of us."

"Ugh, Jarrod's complaining I'm getting too chummy, you want me to be more chummy," Carly whispered, contorting her face with disgust. "How about I take a third option?"

"What do you mean?" Ayo asked.

"Later, later." Carly slipped out of the room, crawling up to the living quarters and sought out Nra'tex-ne's private room. She wasn't supposed to be here without a summon, but she had to get this out of her hair.

The door to Nra'tex-ne's room was closed, but with some wrenching she pushed it open.

Any decent yautja would have heard her, so Carly was cautious as she slipped in. When no offended roar came, she looked around.

Nra'tex-ne slouched on a chair, head backward and eyes closed. There was a low rumble coming out of his throat.

"What's wrong with you?"

He startled, but didn't get out of the chair.

"Headache," he said. "Too much cold."

Typical of little yautja kids, but not elder ones, to get themselves in one of the few places where the temperature was wrong for them. Oh well. Carly grabbed a pillow, dunked it in a bowl of warm water and slapped it on his face. "We need to talk."

He shoved the pillow backward on his head so he could look at her. He said nothing, didn't chastise her for the intrusion, just had this expectant but weary expression.

"I've been told to suck up to your and raise our 'honor quotient' so you," she said with air quotations, more for herself than him, "But I'm a miserable liar and I don't like putting up acts. How about we come open and clean about how screwed I and my friends are once you give up converting us?"

"What makes you think I'd let those who want you dead have it that way?" he asked.

"You ignore Melanie and Oihana, you ignore the boys, you barely talk to Ayo. I'm not the one who saved your people, they are. That seems to mean little to you."

"It does mean something," he said, a bit more animated than she had expected. Good, cookie points for him. "But I can hardly turn any of them into a hunter on a whim. A chance to hunt must be earned."

"Is that the only way you can express kindness? Make people a hunter and anyone not physically fit can't receive it?"

He didn't answer that.

"Just say something, dammit!"

"What greater gift is there but a chance to become strong and acquire a name that lives on after your death?"

Carly sat down on the floor, crossing her legs. She passed on telling him she wouldn't be there to enjoy any name if he died. "Do you want me to make a list of gifts I value more, or should I call in one of the geeky kids to tell you all about neurological functions and value of balanced emotions?"

He groaned. "Maybe it's not a gift to you. You are—"

"Still waiting for you to answer my question!"

He stared at her through narrowed eyes, then hurled the wet pillow at her. She raised her arms to slap it away.

Nra'tex-ne stood up, towering over her again. Carly almost stood up, almost took the bait, but no. That's be playing his game. She stayed where she was, pretend there the imago play was nothing.

"I fought one of my brothers today because they questioned your ho— integrity. Isn't that enough evidence?" he snarled. "You have no business questioning my word."

"Word?" Carly shrugged and put the pillow on her lap. "When I was little, I wanted to be an honest mayor of the city. Lack of money and stupid choices had me be a criminal. I didn't have a lot of options, but it still was a choice I ended up making, despite what I once thought I wanted. How long can you suffer the derision of your beloved family, hmm? What choices might you make?"

"As long as it takes," he said with frightening certainty. It wasn't the resolve of a delusional little girl she was facing here, but a powerful warrior who had made a successful sport out of raising outcasts. Maybe he really would keep at it, but that could just break him down. Social structures were filled with pits.

She was about to assure him it was just the others who really didn't believe it when he bent down and pulled her to her feet, glaring down at her.

"What do you mean, you're a criminal?"

Shit, he never knew that.

Might as well get it out.

"I stole from people to feed myself and get my money and whatever else. I killed in defense, which can be illegal if it's in a situation where I broke into a place. You weren't the first to hunt me. I was an the wanted list of the cops for a long time."

He seemed to think that over before saying, "So you didn't execute anyone or kill honorable people? How does acting against an enemy clan who clearly does not follow your code make you a criminal?"

Carly slapped her hand onto her forehead. He couldn't spent five seconds thinking outside of the structure of stuff like honor and paths. It had happened. It really had happened. The time had come when she wanted to defend her status as criminal as a trait of herself, but before that, she'd have to explain the concept of cops to him. If her grandparents knew she'd end up in this position, they'd have a laughing fit.

"They were other humans and I broke the laws we all fell under," she said.

"I understand that unlike with us yautja, humans have no connective law system. You even have separate languages. I don't mind you did what you had to do. In fact, I find it admirable you've kept true to your code despite the challenges."

"Hmm." So that was how he did it. Classify humans as Other. Only because she had become allied to him, she no longer was the Other. The scariest part was that he could understand she had a different set of values, he just didn't find them as relevant as his own. The monster believed she could become a monster too, like him. But to him, that meant she would stop being a monster.

He set his hand on her shoulder, she shrugged him off. "Well, that's nice of you. Too bad the rest of your people don't bother to even consider whether humans have anything worthy. Would they ever pause and give humanity that chance?"

"No."

She looked up, her eyes narrowed. "No? Then why do you defend them?"

"It is the faith I defend, not those who malpractice it. I'll admit that my people could use a little more adherence to the true heart of the code. It should be more about the Path and less about the thrill."

"So everything your faith says is a misinterpretation now?"

"It is elaboration that was made by ancient elders, yes. The original code never says anything about how to deal with sapient creatures who are not yautja."

Hmm, that would make sense. Those laws had been laid down at a time when yautja were the only sapient species they knew of, and there would be no need to have a law about "sapient who is not a yautja".

"Okay, I'll give you that it's not the laws, but the people. Still, given what your people are doing, and have done for centuries in the past, humans have no reason to accept your way of life. Are they worth less to you because everything in the world is against them adopting your lifestyle?"

"That isn't something that I bear responsibility for," he said. He shifted weight, typical whenever he became nervous without realizing it.

The heritage of a thousand generations would not be erased by her simple words. But the same was true for her and a thousand generations worth of human stubbornness. Whatever else her DNA contained didn't seem to be any more tame either. "That's not an answer to the question."

"Then what is?"

Carly wasn't sure what the question was anymore, but it boiled down to who wasn't the Other.

"I want to see your trophy wall. I want to see what you are responsible for," she said as she crossed her arms. "I want to hear whether you killed any humans and whether those were situations like mine. Tell me why I should be alright with it if there's my brothers and sisters on your wall."

He turned away, but that was enough. Maybe throwing in brother and sister was even too much.

At some level, he had to understand it wasn't quite right ... didn't he? Her mind played with a dozen cruel things she could say. What if she killed Karga'te in defense of one of her own? Or what if one of children clawed open Melanie? She could think up a dozen situations where she herself could kill someone in a way he'd have to justify if he stuck by his backward interpretation of her criminality.

She waited for a long time, but he didn't talk to her again.

"Goodnight," she finally said.

On the way out, she cast a glance at the door behind which she knew the trophies were. Morbid enough on its own, the worst was the wish that he'd just make a point about her skull being there. That's make it easier to resent him.

**· · · · · · ·**

As far as Oihana was concerned, the conflict between Carly and Tex was laughably insignificant. She did get it, they had such a small world that it mattered in their grand scheme whether they agreed on a philosophical level. She was a little to busy convinced her brain that even if she felt like her throat was slashed or her skin ripped off, there wasn't any point in panicking. It didn't really happen to her. Please, please stop released fear, it only makes it worse.

Bloody killer about to bring their death into the city filled her own bigger picture. When they hunted, they killed far away, but the festival brought ritual killing into the city. Part of the celebration was about initiating children into the hunt, another part had arena battles. They dressed this up as an honor for the primary ten gods, but in reality it was for the priests to feel glorified. They presented themselves as avatars of the gods, claiming that during this sacred time the gods descended to give their blessing. It never occurred to the hunters that if the gods only dropped by during a special time, that meant the rest of the time this place wasn't worth the attention. Though sometimes, she wondered whether it was a complete ruse. Maybe some of the priests believed too much in themselves.

This wasn't okay. Her mother had always warned her of the danger of overloaded senses. The brain would get clogged and rational thought wouldn't work anymore.

She had to be alright. Balanced. Herself.

Without escape from the sensation of murder, she latched onto their simpler sensory perception. Horns, drums, pipes and strings in everyone's minds to color their so called battle dreamtime. During the festival, males recanted their victories in the hunt and females their victory in war and wilderness. It caught her in a paradox where the reveling power from the living clashed with the sensation of the deaths they celebrated. All swept away in a wild dance to the glory of the gods that enabled them.

Whenever she had feared something, Bakarne had copied her own sense of security without resolving the fear or offering comfort in a more direct way. She'd been so grateful back then, but now she wasn't sure anymore. Wasn't there supposed to be a way to shut this all out or to deal with it, rather than drowning? She wanted to learn strength, but there wasn't anyone to teach her.

The physical here and now had nothing to offer either. It was lonely in the servant quarters, dark and silent and brooding. Even the yautja servants were gone. The humans, well ... she could focus on them.

Melanie lay curled up in a blanket, breathing evenly. She was no longer bothered by the heat, all her energy going to regeneration. Melanie dreamed of things she denied when she was awake, of committing the violence she resented. She was a monster when she slept, but herself when awake. Oihana envied her, because she herself wasn't sure she could manage that.

Only Ayo was awake, polishing her weaponry in a corner. She did take care of her weapons, just not when Tex was around. He'd get false hope about her interest. The slight rasp of her tools was so simple, but it matched the rhythms of the drums perfectly. Ayo wasn't normal either; Oihana doubted she ever had been. She had to sense something about the world, but she didn't suffer from it.

She looked for the boys, hoping they were alright. Mahad had the same balanced mind, Jake spent a sleepless night trying to invent a local way to get intoxicated and ... Frank?

The one person most easy to forget about, she should have paid more attention to him. All her clairsentient focus narrowed onto him, unable to get what happened. He was Frank, but he didn't feel like himself. With all her might, she pushed herself out of sleep. Her body didn't wake up yet, she struggled against the paralysis. The hallucinations of multi-armed gods and horned demons hardly mattered, because there was a more true monster.

The moment she could control her muscles, she jumped up. She janked at Melanie's blanket, but changed her mind when she noticed just how deep Melanie was gone.

Melanie couldn't help, but Ayo could.

Ayo had put down her weapons and stood now. "Is something the matter?" she asked.

Oihana could barely read her mind, as if she operated on a preset program rather than conscious thought. She pulled both arms in front of her chest, wanting to curl up again. Everyone was a little wrong.

"Oihana?"

"Frank is in trouble."

Ayo frowned; she felt confusion, but it was incomplete. "What? He should be safe."

"I think he left the quarters. I don't know why, but we've got to help. He's chased and I can't see clearly right now."

Ayo nodded and stood up. "Do you at least know where he is?"

"Yes, down the ... I don't know the name."

"Show me."

Oihana projected the location into Ayo's mind. It was much more difficult than just attaching those to feelings and impulses she wanted to share, but Ayo got the gist.

"I haven't been in the slave routes enough to know how to get there quickly. Show me the way," she said as she slung her weapons on her back.

"Alright," Oihana said.

If supernatural empathy served any purpose at all, then it was her brain's quick adrenaline pump. She ran quicker than ever, leading Ayo down the halls and up the stairs.

"He's not far from Meidache's crèche. He ran into two drunk teens there."

Ayo was nervous at the word drunk, it that meant avoiding a fight would not be easy.

"Male or female drunks?"

"Two males. They're not trying to kill him, but they don't know their own strength. He ran, they're still after him ... down that ... wait ..." Frank really wasn't right. By now, he should have responded to her empathic guidance. She had no trouble getting into yautja heads, alien as they were. This absolute lack of resonance froze her.

Her senses had to be failing her. This was it, this was losing part of awareness. Humans could live knowing so little about their surrounding, but it was frightening to her. Like going blind.

Ayo shook her shoulder. "Hey, don't freeze up. Jor's contacting us."

Oihana forced her hands to relax, so she could look at the wristband.

Jormungandr said that it had sent Mahad out to throw a switch up in Meidache's quarters because they had activated the ship it was inhabiting. The yautja were running the systems at full power to enhance acoustics of heat and sound. Jor could use excess of activity to disguise a massive download that would allow itself to transform and integrate itself in the pyramid systems. With all its focus, as well as Jarrod and Mahad gone, they left Frank alone. When the boys had returned, he was gone. His wrist band was born off.

"Oihana says Frank's still near Meidache's place, but on a lower level. Can you scan that area without being noticed?"

No, it needed a smaller region. Oihana focused, finding Frank intended to move towards the engine room. With that as pin point, Jor reported a positive scan and told Ayo to retrieve him.

"So much for a quiet evening," Ayo said. "Oihana, you don't look well. Go back, I'll deal with this."

Oihana wasn't sure she wanted to go back with nothing to distract her, but she did it anyway. The hum of the music was stronger in these echoing halls, she could even smell the roast. Someone followed her, but she didn't realize she was the target until she was in the last hallway before the servant quarters.

Karga'te jumped off a higher pathway behind her. At once, she sped up. He caught up without even trying.

"What is it?" she whispered without looking up. He hunched down, the scent of blood whelmed around him. It was his own, though. Scratches of ziou'ra claws covered his arms and lower legs.

"Spirit speaking. Does it work on animals?" He spoke without rage, but she felt the anger.

She forced herself to nod. "Better than anything else. A spirit I have never even spoken to, but animals–."

"Right."

When he tried to grab her she bolted, but he'd picked her up before she got two steps away.

His gauntlet was a punch in her stomach with every step. Had this been Ohtremnek, she'd have slung the feeling at him to make him stop. But she didn't want to provoke someone so suspicious of her ability.

Karga'te climbed out of a window and from there ran down, avoiding the busier streets. He had to take detours, but the route was obvious soon : the silo.

Inside there, he dropped her and closed the door, leaving them in near dark.

Oihana stayed where she was, part out of caution but part in relief. Ziou'ra filled the silo, not celebrating murderers. While the animals were anxious to the point of turning the silo into a. If the humans hadn't been forbidden from leaving their quarters, she would have gone here on her own.

Karga'te lit a lamp, heat for him and light for her. They were atop one of the elevated walks, too high for the ziou'ra to climb.

The ziou'ra hatchlings mulled around in their pits. The first generation was already halfway their parents size and had to be detained apart from the smaller ones. Normally the parents would keep them under control, but with so much of them they couldn't handle it on their own. So much children without parents to comfort them ...

"Meidache says that if I don't get them to shut up, they'll be food tomorrow. She's been waiting for an excuse to get rid of them, says they damage the toddler's hunting ground outside with their feeding. She's stupid, but I can't defy her. I need you to tell me how to get them calm." His voice was nearly drowned out by the music and shrieking. He knelt down again, pulled her up and set a palm on the top of her head, forcing her to look at him. "If I notice you doing anything to my thoughts or my emotions, I will hurt you and no one will care."

She clenched her hands together and stared at the floor. "What do you want me to do?"

Karga'te growled, impatient. "Show me what you do. They're always calm around it and I can't see what you do."

She fidgeted with the sleeves of her shirt. "I don't think I should connect with your mind at all."

"Why not?"

She lowered her head, pulled loose and took a step back.

Karga'te chuckled. "Be that way. If you won't tell me, do it yourself." Then he picked her up and tossed her into the pit.

She landed on the back of one of the larger ziou'ra, her reflexes too slow. She rolled off as the ziou're reared. One sharp foot came down, but she pushed out of the way just in time. Frantic, she tried making it feel she wasn't a threat, but there wasn't much but her own fear to project.

The food box had a small opening between that and wall, but another ziou'ra blocked her path. With all the anxiety she herself was radiating, they only were convinced something poisonous was going on. She barely dodged from another piercing foot.

There wasn't a next attack, Karga'te jumped onto the back of the nearest ziou'ra, pulled it off course. It slammed against the wall and Karga'te scraped his arm over from the shoulder down, but he didn't let that slow him down. He jumped off, grabbed Oihana and climbed out of the pit.

On the runway, he dropped her on the floor and sat down aside of her, clutching his arm. Oihana crawled away, backing against the wall. She pulled her her leg and put her arms around them, trying to block off as much of the world as possible.

"Dammit," Karga'te muttered as he inspected the wound. "What in the pit just happened? I know what you can do!"

"I can't work emotions like a computer," she said while sniffing. "It doesn't work like that. I can influence what already exists, but only in so far I can influence my own feeling. I'm not okay, there's too much going on. I can't lock it out, you know. The whole feast."

He tilted his head, confused. "But you're farther now."

"You're here," she said. "You're just as scary. Sometimes you want me dead, but I'm not one of those demons from your legends."

"Hggn. You going into theological crap now too?"

She pouted. "You're the one who believes in those legends!"

"I don't! They're ridiculous. Ten armed gods? I haven't seen any priest spout anything but their own creed."

"There's subconscious belief that's different from conscious. Cause if you didn't believe them, you'd have asked me what I am."

He really wanted to object to them, but didn't get further than clicking his mandibles. After sputtering for a bit, he did ask, "So what are you?"

"There's energy everywhere, and fields. Like humans can't see heat, and you guys can't see colors, and nobody can see the bits in the computer that give the info, there's sometimes other stuff that can't be seen. That's what I read. There's lots of us, but we hide cause people are afraid. That's why we're a little mythic, but that's all. When you see things, you can learn how to control a little, but you can't change the heat by looking at it, right? You'd still need to do something to lower the temperature. You can't make the temperature into light either. It can't become something it might not be on its own."

He thought that over for a bit, before saying, "When you controlled us and Kea'chethi, that is all you did? Encourage us to do what we might not have acted on otherwise?"

Oh, no. Her mother could so so much more, but that wasn't anything Karga'te should know about. Karga'te had just spent a few weeks being completely paranoid about everything he could possibly interpret as out of character, she didn't want that to continue. A little white lie to prevent him from believing something untrue about her was an easy temptation taken.

"Yes, that's all we did. Spirits speakers, not spirit changers, right?"

He growled again, but it was less at her than at scattered memories, all of times when Nra'tex-ne had lectured him on impulsiveness, or when he'd not done something he wanted. The latter was rare. "You couldn't stop me either from taking you along."

The conclusion he reached was better for her. He thought he was less able to be influenced since he lived by his emotions anyway.

"So how exactly do your powers work?"

"I read morphic fields projected by your body, not your mind directly. If I really want to read minds, I have to try hard and be somewhere with little static. I might catch a thought, like you can see how someone feels by their involuntary musk or their posture. Mom could really read minds, but I'm not her."

"So you read bodies and not souls?"

"There's no difference between body and mind."

He thrilled his mandibles, content with that information. "Don't tell that to my brother. And especially not the priests." Still sitting, he grabbed a bit of cloth and tied his wound.

Oihana hunched down, unsure whether she would offer help. Karga'te was only giving her the benefit of the doubt, did she really want to risk losing that by revealing more 'magical' powers? She pushed a little closer to find out, and got a flood of knowledge. Karga'te embraced his hatred for this life, even as he hid it fairly well. He liked the idea of taming these creatures very much though, both in the challenge, and the gods forbid... the not killing them part. He liked to play with living creatures much more than with skulls.

Nra'tex-ne, Ghuran'to and Ohtremnek all were fine with killing animals. Why was this spiteful jerk the one who had an aversion to it? He didn't add up with her image of a compassionate person. He'd been so eager to kill people he disliked.

Well ... at least they agreed on keeping the herd alive.

"I can take the pain away a little and make it heal faster," she said, hunching down next to him. "The nervous system's an extension of the brain, and so is your ability to heal and regenerate."

He stopped tending to the wound, glaring at her.

"I do it to myself all the time," Oihana said, holding out her palms. "I can't regenerate like the others, but I can make something close to it happen. Otherwise I'd be dead already."

He didn't move or say anything, but she felt curiosity. Shuffling closer, she brought one hand across his injured arm.

"It will sting a little," she said. There was a mental laugh, mocking her for thinking he couldn't handle that.

"I didn't think you can't handle it, I thought you should know before you think I'm making it worse."

"You are reading minds now."

"More your emotions, they precede your thoughts."

As if responding to a challenge, he thought a complex plan at her. The ease with which he opened suggested he might be good at clairsentience, which pleased her.

What he wanted to do with the ziou'ra, changes to the stable, ideas on how to really tame them. Harnesses and saddles, ways to give them commands. Ways to herd them so they'd graze where they would be no trouble. It distracted her from her healing.

"Did that work?" he asked.

"I think I can help you tame them, and you help me. Okay," she said with a smile. "Give me a little longer to become calm again, okay?"

"Okay. But if you spill one word about what I really think about the leaders, you'll regret it."

That was true too, but this time it didn't scare her. He meant there would be trouble, but not by him to her. In the fragments he offered, there were a lot of unsavory names and curses plastered on matriarchs and priests.

It made it easier to not hate him.

**· · · · · · ·**

One frenzied but satisfying night behind him, Nra'tex-ne struggled free from the blankets of Ouke's bed. His mate growled something about noise outside, so he felt obligated to close the window; sometimes having an outer apartment wasn't the best.

It was the morning after the sixth night of the festival and there would be another feast this evening. He wanted sleep, dammit. It just was that Ouke and her musk were really, really hard to resist. Sometimes, he thought the god of procreation just liked to make things hard, rather than rewarding.

He staggered to the nearest window, leaned out, saw some blurs of unblooded idiots wasting their energy on the terrace ... oh, ziou'ra had escaped? Whatever. They'd deal with it.

Just when he resolved to crawl back into bed, Carly emerged from one of the crawlspaces.

"Oh, there you are," she said with a giddy tone.

He stopped, just curious enough to wonder what she wanted.

"Tex. I need you to see something. Come outside for a bit."

No, sleep, his more base mental regions reminded him. Or sex. Sex is good too.

"Later. Get out of here before Ouke smells you."

Carly made a dismissive wave with her hand. "Didn't she want the noise to stop? Come on, I know what's going on and where. Your brother won't listen to me, but he will to you. Maybe."

Nra'tex-ne stifled a roar. "What did he do now?"

"That depends on how defensive you're gonna be about it," Carly muttered as she elbowed him.

"Fine. I'll be outside soon, wait for me."

"Good," Carly said, an entirely too satisfied smirk on her face. He didn't like that.

A few time units later, Carly had led him to one of the larger terraces, where a group of cheering yautja had gathered. Mostly of them were young, and a few blooded warriors who had claimed the best spots on pillars. The crowned moved for Nra'tex-ne while Carly wormed to the edge elsewhere.

In an area circled by electric wire were two adult ziou'ra, his brother, and a fallen yautja whose name escaped him. Karga'te circled him and spouted insults, while the one on the ground struggled up, snarling back. There was no relation, however. He limped off with Karga'te hollering insults and the crowd jeering.

Karga'te pulled one of the ziou'ra's head closer to him, clattering something and then climbing back on. Nra'tex-ne hadn't seen those saddles and reigns before, and the way Karga'te used them was new. He steered the beast in a circle, while the other one followed. Once or twice he jerked the head back in a certain direction, but most of the guidance was small tugs, weight shift and leg pressure. Nra'tex-ne had seen similar techniques with certain other species that used mounts, humans included.

The ziou'ra always kept an eye on Karga'te, as if he were their leader. They responded to barely noticeable thrills he made, or chatter that sounded random at first. Karga'te wasn't just riding a beast, he controlled the other one as well.

It would be so easy for the elders or matriarchs to take offense to this. Even if Karga'te didn't use them for the hunt, it was so unorthodox someone could just invent a reason it was wrong. Karga'te did have permission to attend to the ziou'ra, but he had no business keeping them as pets. The humans were only allowed this because they were no yautja, and Ayo was expected to give them up as soon as her endurance was ahead.

A new challenger appear, pushed ahead by hollering friends. He tried climbing the other ziou'ra, but only barely managed before the beast tried throwing him. Karga'te let one hand hang loose and clattered, driving him just how much better he did it with childish arrogance.

Yet Nra'tex-ne didn't step up to disband the ridiculous show.

He had always believed Karga'te would be one of those rebellious teens who would wisen up as they grew older. Right here, Karga'te didn't look like that would ever happen. No, he looked like he had finally found his purpose and it was not the hunt. The contempt Karga'te had often displayed was in full swing, dripping from every jab he made at how typical hunting class didn't prepare anyone for this kind of struggle. He even made a legit point when he told them they'd all fail a hunt where they had to capture a life hardmeat queen.

This one failed as well. Five more hunters tried, three of whom suffered injuries. One got stabbed in the abdomen by a sharp hoof.

Eventually an elder arrived and demanded this idiocy be stopped. Karga'te acted amazingly humble as he accused the Hukcha tribe of wanting to play with Ayo's mounts. The elder, only the gods knew how, accepted this ruse and turned his anger on them. Karga'te was sent away and the elder ordered the Hukcha unblooded to follow.

Karga'te returned the beasts to the silo, Nra'tex-ne followed him. He wanted a tough word with his brother, preferably in a way that didn't reveal his curiosity. Carly saved him the effort when she rejoined him.

"He and Oihana have been training with them since the first night. Some spirit speech may be involved. What'd you think?"

"I ... what am I supposed to think of this?"

Carly's grin split her face. "No scriptures on it? Doesn't surprise me."

As he walked, Karga'te casually scratched the ziou'ra beneath the chin, as if they weren't prey but companions who needed physical contact. The beast shook its head and leaned into the gesture, droning in contention. Karga'te did it for no reason other than that the creature liked it.

Oihana peeked out of the silo, hesitant to come out when she saw Nra'tex-ne. Karga'te called her and she stepped out. They looked like they talked, their expressions changed, Karga'te even laught, but there wasn't any sound. Karga'te picked her up at the end of it and put her on the back of one of the ziou'ra. He climbed on the other one.

Only then did Karga'te look back, surprised to see his brother. He steered the creature towards him and Carly, the other one close behind.

"We're going to graze the herd further down the forest. Wanna come?" he asked, pointing his thumb to the west. "We'll teach you how to ride. Ayo's there too, you can spar or something if you get bored."

"Don't count on it, he has a bed waiting for him," Carly said. "I had to make him believe he had to bail you out of trouble before he even wanted to come."

Karga'te shrugged, but the dismissive gesture was a disguise for mischief. "Suit yourself, but don't whine if you can't keep up in the future."

That was Nra'tex-ne's line from years ago, during a time he'd gotten so fed up with Karga'te's disinterest he'd walked out. Not a proud moment, nor a real parallel. That made it sting all the more to have Karga'te reflect it.

Worst though was that at first though, he didn't know what he was reprimanded for. He's just gotten out of bed and voila, weirdness.

As Karga'te and his pets left, he sat down. A smug Carly leaned against a tree.

"So, I'm waiting for your glorious explanation of your brother, despite being raised to kill, finding his path in living things. And he's good at it. Useful too. Nothing unnatural. I dunno whether there's any inborn talent, but it sure seems that exposure to your True Path didn't really work. Hmm, now if only we knew any other civilizations that make the non-killing lifestyle work and weren't corrected by their gods yet. Can you help me come up with any?"

The more she spoke, the more all the doubt surfaced up from the cold place he'd buried it.

How much yautja were born with talents they couldn't pursue because it wasn't the official Path? How often had he put his brother before a creature that he would have liked to tame, rather than kill? How much fundamental logic were his traditions ignoring?

"Nothing to say? Really? That's pathetic," Carly said. "Let me give you another question. Under what law of your Path is it okay to abduct a defenseless creature and torture them?"

Tired, he looked up. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just saying it goes both ways. Your brother likes life too much, some others like death too much. Frank was abducted on the first night of the festival. Oihana says they hurt him pretty badly. He's escaped now, but we don't know where he is. He's afraid and went into hiding somewhere. You didn't even notice he's gone, did you? I get it, there never was any chance you could turn him into a public display about your honor project. Say ... when you helped your brother, was that to prove a point or did you actually give a shit about him?"

There was a faithless prey species talking without any respect. He ought to take offense, but there was only a hollow in his spirit.

Carly sighed. She sat down opposite of him, leaning her chin on a hand. "Hey. It's not that I want you to suffer, but you gotta get you're pretty annoying. Like, we know you can care about people, but you act like all that matters is that your theory is proved. That whole 'the Path can elevate everyone' project. We hear them talk, you know."

"You hear a lot," he said.

"But I'm not hearing you. The you that's not obsessed with the Path."

"We should go look for your friend. Where was he seen last?" he said, standing up.

"You're ignoring the point, Tex. Your brother's probably gonna ditch all of this, you included, first chance he gets. It's all gonna fall apart," Carly said. "If not him, it's others who will do it."

He walked back to the pyramid. "If it's Karga'te whom you asked to look for him, that was stupid. I'm a much better tracker."

"Tex, dammit. Don't you get it? You're not really on the Path as far as your clan's concerned."

"Aren't you supposed to be worried for your friend?"

"Stop changing the topic! We tried three ways of looking, it didn't work. If you're not gonna listen, then go back to bed. Don't make yourself look weirder by walking around looking for missing slaves," she said.

She still sat there, not even raising her voice. He stopped, waiting for her to follow. She didn't.

"I'll stop talking to you if that's what you want. Now, let me do my task."

By the time he was back to the pyramid, she hadn't caught up. On the grand plan, she never would, nor would his brother. That wasn't really new understand to Nra'tex-ne, nor was the feeling he hadn't really caught onto the Path either.

**· · · · · · ·**


	28. Pain Limits

**· · · · · · ·**

Jarrod mulled over what Oihana had said: Frank was alive, but moving too quickly for her to pin point an exact location. He wasn't afraid of the ones chasing him anymore.

The child had been able to give them a rough direction, and then it was up to him to find him. Someone, somehow, got Kea'chethi involved, because she had just stepped into their room and announced that she had more movement rights than them, and it wasn't uncommon for her to travel for gather special plants. She didn't mind missing the festival either, and Jarrod didn't mind not being around worried friends or whatever was up with Carly.

Really, what _was_ up with her? Kea mentioned that Tex was in a foul mood, and then Carly slipped by on the docks. She passed on a message from Melanie to Frank, and tried to get out before Kea noticed. As if she could dodge a yautja. Barely had Kea sniffed her, or she asked what the hell Carly had said to Nra'tex-ne.

 _"He's got a wee case of spiritual crisis."_ Said in the most infuriatingly casual tone to boot.

Didn't she had any survival instinct? One can't just go undermine the psychological stability of the one alien with authority who doesn't wanna kill them!

 _"You don't get it! He's just so serious about this! About serial killing! As if it's noble! It doesn't even make sense by his own logic! I wouldn't give a shit if it was some type of ambiguous moral quandary, but this?"_ was the so ingenious answer to that.

That was the end of that conversation, again. There was no reasoning with her, so Jarrod was almost happy to be distracted by the search. Sort of. If it didn't involve finding a friend either dead or maimed.

Kea was pretty good at tracking, particularly since sight by color allowed her to spot a trail far more easily during the day. Jarrod was just in for the ride, until they found Frank. Both Melanie and Kea had figured that if Frank hadn't come back yet, he had to be afraid. Jarrod's job was to talk him into coming back, especially if Kea couldn't catch him. The area Oihana had pointed to had caves, many of which Kea was too large for, while Frank could hide in them easily.

She found a blatant trail to the right cave, and mentioned he might've been followed by a yautja, likely one of his tormentors. That pretty much turned out to be right. They were barely hundred meters into the cave before they found him. Dead.

Maiming confirmed, though not of Frank. Shallow wounds covered the body, but there were so many that the glowing blood was enough to illuminate the small cave.

Kea cursed under her breath and moved past him, while Jarrod followed at a slower pace.

"Oh shit," Jarrod said. "They're going to blame us, aren't they?"

"Probably," Kea'chethi said. "But this one was not very popular. It won't cause the biggest stir."

"Something ate at him," Jarrod said, working past the lump in his throat. "Right?"

Kea'chethi knelt down and inspected the wound. "Yes, by something with a small mouth with blunt teeth, rather like a human's."

Leaned further over, she lifted the dead yautja's arm, most of which had been torn off. "Though not something with the strength of your average human."

"Could it have been something else that ate it later?"

"I don't smell any of the predators of this area," she said. "No fresh prints either, or large enough entrances for those to enter. Tell me, what are you, if not human?"

"I'm human. We're human ... well, maybe not Frank. I don't know."

She stood up and closed the distance. Kea'chethi was supposedly small for a female, underfed when young, but she towered over the males anyway. To Jarrod, she was a giant.

He took a few steps back, and said, "I don't know, I can't figure this out."

She glared down for a few seconds, too long for Jarrod's peace of mind, but then she breathed out. Hunching down, she said, "If you don't talk, then that leaves us with a situation. Unless I have a good answers, I'm not going back and tell them a human did this. I have a shaky reputation to maintain too. So, we need a cover story. You go ahead and find your friend, I have work to do. If you find him dead, bring the body. I can use it."

"Right," he said. "Okay, I'll do that."

Healthy fear of yautja had him at the next tunnel within seconds, only for Kea'chethi to snarl. He froze on learned instinct.

Careful, he looked back, just in time to get a round object in his face.

"Flashlight," she said. "Or can whatever you are see without light?"

"No, right. Thanks," he said, flicking it on.

There were obvious shoe prints in the muck on the floor, but only as far. Jarrod followed what he could, and then just kept walking. He only focused on calming down, which wasn't just because of Kea'chethi. The image of Frank killing a yautja was absurd, but worse was that he might have eaten him. He'd have dismissed it if he hadn't been there, hadn't learned to recognize bite wounds.

Or perhaps his turns weren't so random. Familiarity led him, honing in on something he shouldn't know.

It hardly even came as a surprise when he did find Frank.

He crouched on the edge of an underground river, staring right at the entrance where Jarrod entered.

Eyes wide and too reflective in the flashlight, unblinking, the sight made Jarrod freeze in his track. Everything about Frank looked sickly and thin, except those eyes. He noticed those before he noticed that Frank was chewing on a hand. Splatters of green dripped down the rock and into the river.

"Hey, Frank ... how are you doing?" Jarrod asked, trying very hard to sound like he did every day. "That can't taste good, does it?"

He crunched down on the thumb of the hand. "It does not at all. The meat's better."

Jarrod slowly approached. "So, eh, why did you do that? Not that I care you killed that yautja. I know a few more I'd like to see dead, but ... man, just stop eating that. It's disgusting."

"No. No, I need to be strong. If it's not them who kill us, it's going to others. Or ourselves if Jor makes us like it wants. They're here cause of Jor, I bet it. Jor called in those badbloods too, I know it. Everyone knows. You don't, though. You don't get how big it is. We have to die so Jor doesn't get off the planet. But Ayo and Mahad already get it, right?"

"Okay ... I'm sure that makes sense, somehow, but eating dead yautja doesn't make you stronger.

He laughed, but nothing about him moved. No shaking shoulders, his head perfectly still.

"They do. Yautja don't make sense. I accessed records, Jarrod. They have lots in Ohtremnek's pyramid. If a human consumes yautja, they can live much longer and become stronger. That doesn't make any sense," Frank said. He kept chewing the thumb. Never blinked. "We're too closely related for things from across the galaxy. Unless we were seeded, but none of that really matters. We're forgotten. Jor plays with the pieces."

"Frank?"

"It never matter, did it?" he muttered. " _I_ didn't matter."

Jarrod knelt down at his side, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, that's not true."

"It is. Is. Jor said I'm not relevant since I don't mutate as well as the others. I'm too sickly, so I'm going to become strong," he said. "I'm going to be the first of us."

With a shove too strong for who he had been, he hurled Jarrod back. By the time Jarrod scrambled back up, Frank had jumped in the river. He didn't emerge again.

Jarrod stood there for a long time, watching the water with the realization he shouldn't be able to see so much. It wasn't even color that he perceived with ...

He took a slow step back, then another, and kept walking until her heard the others.

When he returned, Kea'chethi had dragged the corpse out already. It lay there, mauled in a variety of ways.

"We'll wait a bit until a uujenuze comes by and starts munching, there's one near," she said. "You didn't find him?"

"He jumped into the river," he said.

Kea'chethi gave him a long look. "How long can humans hold their breath?"

"I don't know what it's on your clock, but ... he didn't survive. He didn't drown either, because float when dead. I waited, but maybe he swam on."

"Maybe. Is that going to be your story, or are you going to tell me what might slaughter me if I piss off one of you?"

He shook his head. "I swear, I don't know."

"You _should_ know."

"How? I was born on a desert planet! I've never even seen a human visitor from another planet up close! I have no idea what real humans are like, because everything we know was from a broken cyberspace controlled by ..." He couldn't just tell her how deep this went, could he? Jor wouldn't like it. "I just ... he probably has some sort of extra sense for tracking. I could somehow notice him. He noticed me before I saw him and ... watch your back."

**· · · · · · ·**

Oihana turned over in her sleep once more, trying to get out of the nightmare halfsleep. She was Frank, in the dream, all his memories pasted on a newborn brain. It wasn't Frank, really, it had the experiences but not the personality. There was just a childish instinct there that wasn't even sure _what_ it wanted.

It was him seeing her, the way she saw him. Another one like him, now.

She realized too late it wasn't a nightmare. He was already at the door, pushing it open.

Paralyzed, Oihana stayed where she was. He crept in the room, leaving the door open. _Take her along, out of the city._

At the bedside, he stood straight, peering down at her. The second Oihana even thought of running out the door, he grabbed her forehead and pushed her up against the wall.

The pain of the collision distracted her long enough for him to ... scan her? She saw a reflection of herself in his new mind, details about what she was.

He dropped her abruptly. For a split second she believed he remembered her as a friend ... no ... he remembered her as a creepy little girl. The reason he moved away was entirely different : she wasn't fertile yet.

Oihana curled up under her blanket, trying to block out the resonance of that thing. Replace it with something else, anything but that thing. She needed help, tried to reach out in the surrounded.

Whether seconds or minutes later, she couldn't tell, but Ayo stumbled into the room. She dropped her tools on the way to the bed and softly, she shook Oihana's shoulder.

"Oihana, can you tell me what happened?"

She didn't really feel curious, why tell her? There was something else she had to know.

"It's not Frank," she muttered. "It's a machine made of bits of him. He wants to breed."

The disturbed her, and now she was confused too. "I can't ... not like this ..." She swallowed hard. "Okay. Okay, listen. Stay with me, and try to warn the others."

"I'll try," Oihana said.

Ayo helped her up, and Oihana grabbed a few things from storage. Oil and fire was always readily available in a city whose inhabitants saw with heat.

Following Ayo closely, she tuned in on Melanie and Carly, both of whom were at work in one of the lower rooms. Merely projecting a sense of danger wouldn't rouse them, they'd just get bad dreams from that. The thing Frank had become approached them by crawling across walls, knowing exactly where the yautja were, would do, avoiding them easily and unseen. He looked back at her, just like her mother once could, but there was no human recognition. He did not like that she was going to get in the way of what he had to do.

Procreate. Spread. Become one whole made out of many parts. A hive.

No. Not like the xenomorph. Better. Worse. It did not matter. Breed.

Ayo's steady footsteps ahead gave her little grounding, but she clung to the sound while warping her mind to what little was pleasant in this city. She couldn't afford to give into the bloodlust.

They followed him into the crawlspace, where they no longer had to keep a respectful pace in case they met any honored warriors. The few yautja servants here looked up curiously at the running, but were too tired to stop them.

They arrived in their room to find Melanie lying on the ground with a tear through her shirt. The monster had Carly's strangle wire around his neck, and Carly rammed between his back and the wall. She was hurt, but wouldn't let up. His arms clawed at her head, tearing bloody scrapes — going for her eyes.

"Carly, move!" Ayo shouted as she extended her spear. Carly did exactly that, but rather than dodge she forced Frank on his knees, wire still around his neck to pull him level to the ground, helped with her weight. Good enough for Ayo, who drove the spear through his chest from an upward angle. The monster howled with an inhuman voice.

Carly set her knee against Frank's shoulder, crossed her arms for extra grip. The wire hooked below Frank's jawline and she pulled his head loose.

She fell back and the head rolled away from her, gasping for breath and eyes frantically moving about. Oihana stepped up to the thing that had been Frank, torch in her hand. After a moment of hesitation — it was still a human face with a human mind behind it, but one stripped of the thing called humanity — and then she turned the oil upside down, then pushed the torch in his face. She never closed her many eyes, watching the head turn to ash and the molecules fall apart. Even while dying, it raged at her betrayal of the kind. She just saw him back as an enemy, not kind.

When there was no more life in it, she stepped back and collapsed against the wall, caught in the rush of killing and a dangerous instinct creeping at the edge of not just herself, but every other human in the room. Worst yet in Melanie, whose blank eyes looked at the behead corpse. It still twitched, and already began regenerating. Veins grew out of the body at a slow but steady pace. Surrounding it, the very fabric of space felt wring. Where was the mass coming from? Even when half a head in, the rest of the body didn't shrink anywhere.

Melanie and even Ayo were half tempted to let it, and be swept away in their instincts. Oihana pushed back against their minds, grabbed the rest of the oil and set the body ablaze. It wasn't enough oil to ignite the whole body, but she pushed it on, speaking with the strange matter to stir it up. Method existed in the small parts, and with space or energy or whatever it was so twisted, it was actually easier to will the fire.

That didn't do for Melanie, who let go a single breath, then didn't breathe anymore. She launched at Oihana, desperate to make the fire stop. Hands closed around her throat, not to choke but to break. Oihana cried out, in voice and in mind.

It stopped Melanie a little, long enough for Carly to grab her the legs and haul her away.

"Ayo, _help out_ ," Carly hissed.

Taking another deep breath, Ayo moved, slower than usual, to pull Melanie back and keep her against the other wall.

"Oihana, you okay?" Carly asked.

Stiffly, Oihana nodded. Carly meant physically okay, and for so far it was true.

Carly remained standing in the middle of the room, surveying it but also in case Melanie lost herself again. "Okay, what's this room for and what are the odds anyone else is going to walk in here soon?"

"It's for drying herbs for the meal. Most of it's been used up already," Melanie muttered. "How'd you even know I was here?"

"I didn't, but I think I sensed Frank, somehow, but we can talk about that later. That thing—" Carly said, but Melanie interupted with, "It's Frank. His name's Frank."

 _Wasn't_ , Oihana wanted to say, but she kept her tongue.

"Fine, Frank just started regenerating _his head_. I say we torch the entire room in case the rest of his cells do anything funny, then get ourselves clean."

"It wouldn't be weird if a fire broke out in a dry place," Ayo said. "But we should do it after Melanie's seen elsewhere, so she won't be blamed for it. Carly, if you can handle that, I'll inform the boys."

Carly nodded. "I saw Kea and Jarrod at the docks earlier, but they were in an area I wasn't allowed. You can probably still catch them."

"Right," Oihana muttered. "They're dealing with the body and the cover story. Frank killed one of the yautja."

"Good god," Melanie whispered. "What are we?"

That question matches someone else's, Oihana realized to her horror. Creeping in from the outside had been another presence, buried under more urgent reality, but clear now. It wanted to know what it was sensing. This other was a closed book, experienced far more, and prying at her mind with intent. She'd seen the Frank replacement first, then Oihana when she burned, and now was so very curious.

Oihana just barely registered the argument that had broken out in her immediate surrounding.

"It's nobody's fault, except Jor's," Ayo said.

"He's the villain, we're supposed to stick together." Melanie wrinkled her nose, or perhaps she tried baring her teeth, never clearly looking at Oihana. "Oihana, you messed up. You should have noticed something was wrong with Frank. You always notice things even when you're not looking, why not this? That's part of the agreement we made when entering the squad," Melanie snapped. "Everyone would do what they do best, and we'd take care of each other! She's responsible for the mind things!"

"Squad? You mean the one Jormungandr started? That doesn't matter anymore," Ayo said. "That whole thing was ridiculous and naive."

"It doesn't matter that we're friends?" Melanie tried slapping Ayo across the face, but Ayo caught her hand.

In a cool tone, Ayo said, "You're lucky I agree with the yautja on one thing. No hitting things weaker than me. Get to your senses or you'll end up like Frank, and then I won't care about hitting you back anymore."

"As for taking care of our people, haven't you heard? According to our new masters, that's Carly's job now. I'm telling you to back off," Carly said. "And Ayo has a point, you're not keeping yourself together well. Don't go provoking any yautja, cause if I got it right, that's what drove Frank over the edge."

Melanie seemed to fold into herself, already overcome with regret. _She_ was still humane, regardless of how close she'd come to the monster. It hadn't been Frank mentally losing it, even. The other one who looked in now? She'd been watching for a while already. Frank lost it because he died and came back wrong. That other one could see far better, apparently.

"I'm sorry," Oihana said to Melanie.

"Don't do that," Ayo whispered. "This place drives all of us to our limits, Melanie knows that."

"She's right, _I_ should have paid attention. I maybe forgot him a little, he was always just there."

That's why he'd been okay with forgetting himself. He'd given up fighting back at one point.

"Maybe it is. Doesn't give her a 'be a jerk to a kid' green card. Come on, why don't you go the silo while we clean up this mess?" Carly said with a worried look at Melanie, "We can talk about responsibility when we're all less upset."

"Okay," Oihana said and pointed at the body. "It needs to burn more."

"Fire, got it," Carly said, lighting a match. "We'll take care of it."

"Shall I walked you out?" Ayo asked.

Oihana shook her head. "I'll be okay."

Out she went. First at a slow pace, but the ran the moment she was outside. Away from the pyramids, the drums, that infernal festival. That invisible other watching along with her now, curious still.

Once at the silo, when not drowned by immediate crowded radiance, she had more peace to pick apart the streams of information. She climbed on the roof, where she could find some peace in the forest and wind.

The one watching her in the sight of the gods, as they called it, was a daughter of Ustran'ku. She was still young, wouldn't even be taller than Ohtremnek, already the smallest of their yautja friends. Too young to be involved in the rituals that kept her mother and older sisters occupied, but not too young to run errands. Some had seen her suddenly drop her work a few hours ago and chase something, not unusual for the daughters of the priestess, but noted in case anyone needed their location.

They weren't really strong spirit speakers, Oihana thought, but they were in a position of power.

She should leave. The thought just opened in her mind and wouldn't let go. It would be easier. She couldn't really stop her friends from becoming monsters, but if they could get away from the city ... maybe she could go first and they'd follow. Or maybe she was just too scared and tired, and needed an excuse. It sounded good enough in her head : _the priestess is a little bit able to spirit speak, and she noticed me. Us. We should leave. Never mind Jormungandr, he's trapped anyway. This planet is so big, we can hide forever. Become monsters and control it maybe. Have peace. Just give up that we might ever return to humankind, we're not part of them._

She could sum all of those reasons up in fine words, but at the bottom, she just couldn't bear with this city of murder anymore. They'd stop her if she'd say goodbye, so she just wrote a message inside the silo, and took one of the fastest young beasts. Light enough not to leave too much of a trail, old enough to find the way back once she went on alone.

**· · · · · · ·**


	29. Desert Plants

**· · · · · · ·**

Karga'te met Ghuran, Kea'chethi, Ayo and Ohtremnek in the silo, where the latter paced around above the pens. Kea pointed out a message Oihana had written. Apparently she'd split and this worried the others.

Karga'te growled, too irritated for this nonsense. "Ohtremnek, quit fretting. She's a good spirit speaker, but only when she's not scared. The only thing that scares the shit out of her is yautja. If she's away from us, she'll be safer than ever. I bet she's already brainwashed herself a host of pets."

Ayo bit her lip. "It's not sure she can brainwash everything ... how much do you know about humans?"

"Enough to know what Kea described isn't human," he said.

"It would probably be a good idea to get us out of this city, though," Ayo said.

"You don't get it!" Ohtremnek barked. "They'll track her down and kill her. By accident, they'll say, or that they found her dead."

That would be something many yautja would do, Karga'te had to admit. Yautja had no problem letting other things kill prey, honor only applied on doing the killing themselves, and he knew all about the kind of accidents that the lower castes sometimes got.

"Ayo, your brother's good with tech things, right? I need him to get in touch with someone right now."

**· · · · · · ·**

With two humans vanished, a dead yautja in the jungle and the sudden curiosity of a daughter of Azenkastral's high priestess, she had to root out a problem somehow.

It wasn't the death itself, but the sheer distance the human had managed to get away, judging by the body. Even for a drunk yautja that was embarrassing, so the only logical explanation was that the human knew what he was doing. More than a few wild rumors went round saying that the mauling had only happened after the hunter had been killed. More reasonable minds assumed he'd just fallen from a tree and had been gnawed on by something that had strayed out of its usual territory. Maybe an out of season second generation worm. In any case, something had to be done.

It always reeked of mating musk in Tex's quarters, Meidache resented having to step in here. All of his core wives were horny fools who took it a little too loose with the rules when he didn't pay attention (which was often). Unfortunately she needed a word with them, so she braced against the scent and sought them out.

Zeltzumar invited her in through the compad, but didn't get up from her lavish couch, nor did the other two. The most Meidache got for respect was a nod from them.

"So, what do you want," Zeltzumar growled.

"I take it you heard of the incident?"

"Noooo," Ouke purred. "Was it funny?"

"The dead hunter chasing one of the male humans," Kso'redese said. "I gave you the updates, it was in that."

"I only read the news about the skirmish between Noi'chaka's brats," Ouke said. "What's important about some hunter getting himself killed when chasing a human?"

"Some consider blaming the human and killing him," Meidache said. "They want my brother to relinquish his ownership so he won't kick up a fuss afterward."

"I didn't even know he owned them," Zeltzumar said. "Huh, good luck with that. If it was up to Tex, they'd all be honorary hunters. Just kill the brat

"First of, we do not know whether the human did anything to be punished for. Second, have you my brother? He won't shut up for years if we disregard his claim," Meidache said.

"Ah yes, I am distantly familiar with him," Zeltzumar said. "We have five children together, I might know him a little bit. Him not shutting up as at most inconvenient for his students, it doesn't bother me, so why are you talking to us about this?"

"Nra'tex-ne's status is enough that the elders will respect him if he takes it to them, weird as he may be," Meidache said, biting down her impatience. "Our problem is that _two_ humans are missing and we do not know what happened. At least one of those was chased out of the city. We can't tell which one or both relinquished themselves from protection. The other one worked for this household, it was the smallest one."

"The little one didn't show up this morning," Ouke said, suddenly interested. "But that happens a lot. She's the spirit speaker, right? She gets sick from emotions."

That was one of the weirdest things Meidache had ever heard, but if Ouke wasn't messing with her, that would explain the interest of Azenkastral's priestesses. Hmm.

"Who cares?" Zeltzumar snarled. "She's not here, and if she's not elsewhere, we can't help you."

"That is the other issue. If I send Nra'tex-ne to chase them, thus taking a leave from the classes he is to teach, it will stand out all the more."

Ouke'tenta whined. "Why can't we just send an unblooded?"

"Nra'tex-ne can send his human student to retrieve them. Any odds we can get the rest cleaned up while she's gone?" Zeltzumar said. "They're useless."

"I'd like to be rid of these stains on our proud society, but we are above arranging death for no proper reason," Meidache said. "And Ayo is not allowed to leave the city unsupervised."

"I'd say our honor is a proper reason. Not that we have to do it ourselves. Let's steer them toward some reckless youth that we need to chastise anyway. Twice the flies in one net, what do you say?"

"Low no matter how you do it," Meidache snarled. "And now you want to tempt one of our own into disgracing themselves?"

Zeltzumar almost stood and Meidache braced for a confrontation, sure to win, only for something she couldn't defeat to drop in.

The door slammed open and the entrant shouted, "Hey there, my lovely girls. I heard some funny news, thought I'd check in."

Oh gods dammit.

Uich'ernite marched in, grabbed Zeltzumar and Ouke'tenta by the shoulders and threw them right off the sides of the couch. Then she twisted around on one leg, flaring out her cape so she could deposit herself on the couch. She put her feet on the table, arms spread over the couch's back, ignoring the offended noises around.

"Daughter. I hear you lost two humans in one day. How bold you suddenly are with your plans to dispose of them, what was it again? The pests, the stains on our honor? Tell me how you did it."

Meidache clenched her fists into the armrests. There was no way Uich'ernite actually believed she had anything to do with it, she was up to something. "What do you want?"

"The juicy details."

"There are no juicy details. All that happened is—"

"Mysteriously dead hunter with mysterious wounds and mysteriously untraceable humans. That's not dry news at all, my dear daughter. Now, I saw you at the festival, but who knows what orders you gave?"

"I did not stage anything. Maybe we ought to suspect you. You come in here on my trail and know things you were not told." It was risky and out of line to speak like that, but if she liked one thing about her mother, it was how utterly relaxed she was about challenges.

Uich'ernite just laughed and tapped her compad on her wrist. "These things, they transfer voice messages. You know, everything you said about your little half brother is true. What a rude brat, he didn't even greet me by my stupid title. So proud. I should choose more mates based on how much I like them. You wouldn't believe it, but skull walls aren't always a good hint at whether you agree on, oh, _anything_."

"What? How could he even contact you?"

"Oh, I'm sure we could speculate on his choice of companionship and their skills, but let's focus on what happened."

"We don't know anything, as we've just told your daughter," Zeltzumar said, who had stood up by now. She didn't dare sit down on the couch though.

"No?" Uich'ernite turned to the other two. "Really?"

"The little one's a very good spirit speaker. Best alarm system we've had yet," Ouke'tenta purred, giving Kso'redese a look. "I'd like her back."

"Hmm, Nra'tex-ne told us nothing about that, but Karga'te alluded to something off about her. I suppose that explains why the brats of Azenkastral's pack are snooping around."

Now she saw the knife Uich'ernite had hung over her : all she had to do was insinuate that Meidache had done something to get rid of the humans, one of whom the priestesses of Azenkastral had an interest in, and they would be in trouble. Especially if the humans turned up dead. Corpses couldn't explain anything. With Kastiri being on friendly foot with Zeltzumar, Nra'tex-ne's wives were sure to get off.

Uich'ernite had stopped talking, her eyes now fixed on Meidache with an amused slant on her mandibles. Waiting for the inevitable.

"What would you do?"

"I am so glad you asked," Uich'ernite purred. "There will be a training expedition for Nra'tex-ne and his students in the dry sea that's in desperate need of a better name. You'll tell everyone that you set the humans loose as an exercise, starting with the two from yesterday and planning to release the other later, as requested by your esteemed brother. He would like his students to become better trackers. Why not use these humans who were raised on a harsh desert planet? And lo, they were really good. We'll keep it nice and quiet, and most important, out of the hands of Ustran'ku."

Meidache glanced around the room. Kso'redese saw an intense need to clean the side of the couch, Zeltzumar rearranged her jewelry and Ouke'tenta pulled out a typepad while muttering about how she really ought to set up a creche schedule.

No help from that angle. Meidache hated that she even needed help against her mother.

Uich'ernite's claws dug into her shoulders harder by the second.

"They'll wonder why he didn't announce that," Meidache tried, already fearing the answer.

"Nra'tex-ne asked you, who, being such a good daughter, asked me to approve it. I forgot to file it. My bad. All this new technology, I just can't keep up."

"We-we don't ... everyone knows I would not go to _you_ for approval."

"Oh, but we've been mending our relationship so well lately! I've already told everyone."

"You-what?"

"Started doing it the moment I heard of Tex's plan. I figured he'd need back up sooner or later. Now we have a dead hunter in the jungle."

No good fighting this, Meidache knew from experience.

"As you say, mother."

With a purr, Uich'ernite let go, patted her on the shoulder and turned her back on the couch. She took a coin from her dreadlocks, which she flicked it over her head.

"It was ..." The coin hit Zeltzumar, who snarled. "Zeltzi's idea, in case anyone asks why Tex suddenly got weird ideas. There, now you won't look _that_ bad, it wasn't just his weird idea."

"Oooh, it could also be me!" Ouke thrilled. "Like I wanted the humans gone for a bit and joked about sending them away, and he took it all the wrong way, and then Zeltzi started backing him."

"Why are _you_ not my daughter?" Uich'ernite said to her.

Meidache would switch parents with Ouke instantly if the gods permitted it.

"What about the mutilated hunter?" Kso'redese asked.

"Drunk out of his wits, gnawed on by a rabid third stage eurzukaat that was attracted by our reeking ziou'ra herd in its brooding hot silo. The humans with their sharp light sight spotted it, drew its attention and used it as diversion. We'll decide later whether they were scared or whether they thought it was part of program."

"I'm going to demand a new zaghon'tau skull from Nra'tex-ne next time I see him," Ouka'tenta purred.

"That sounds like an excellent idea," Kso'redese added a thrill.

"Can we talk about something more important now, like who cleans up the mess you two made last night?"

Did Nra'tex-ne know to what kind of people he was mated? Meidache began to suspect her mother had recommended Nra'tex-ne, either for sense or to pit them against his rule bound honor.

Uich'ernite clapped her on the back. "Cheer up, child. One day, you'll need me to stick up for you and then you'll be very happy I only live to half of the code's letter and none of its spirit."

**· · · · · · ·**

This planet was always hotter than Ghilsaer, but Jarrod had to take back all his complaints about the pyramid and jungle. The flatlands were so much worse, yet here they were, on an open hovering transporting that brimmed with heat to add to the blaring sun.

Jarrod dealt with the heat by brooding, both psychologically and physically. Carly dealt with it by incessantly oversharing life in the matriarch quarters.

"So, Ouke immediately storms down the hall and barely intercepts Di'niache. While she's diverted I get into the room, warn Kso and Zeltzi, and Kso gets into the crawlspace and next thing we know, she's stuck. I offered to help, but nooo, she's not gonna trust me even when I warned her and calls in her kids. The toddlers! You can imagine how well that went. I totally saved the day by improvising a crowbar to get her boot off. After that she had a newfound appreciation for calm minded adults who happen to small and crafty."

"Sometimes I actually think I'm missing out by not playing housemaid," Ayo said with a rare grin.

"Oh, it's hilarious once you realize you're surrounding by big macho aliens wearing fishnets, hair frills and skimpy armor. Have you ever tried imagining how that would look on a human, complete with the über serious HONOR attitude?"

"Hey now, they do live in a hot climate," Ayo said.

"Yet I don't see you wearing inconvenient clothing."

"Got no tough hide, do have mammary glands. Trust me, if I could do anything to be more socially acceptable, I would. I don't exactly enjoy being made fun of at every turn."

"Just make fun of them back," she said. "Like, don't you think that one's accidentally photogenic enough to be on a magazine cover?"

It went on like that for a while, with no comments because most of Nra'tex-ne's students couldn't understand human languages. They spoke among themselves, ignored the humans and tried spotting prey in the distance. Every so now and then, Nra'tex-ne would bark an order for silence from the helm.

Melanie and Mahad hadn't said a loud word the entire trip. They sat quietly in a corner, and sometimes whispered something. He could hear it over all the noise, which should have been impossible for a real human.

They tried to grieve, but couldn't really. Not here. Carly and Ayo's distraction tactic worked better for them, but then again, they hadn't been close to Frank.

Jarrod didn't know what to say to either side. Frank had been the kind of guy who would never get into a gang. Too upright in standards, to broken in endurance. With Mahad and Frank decent at technology while Jarrod was not, there hadn't been much time for him to really get to know either. Didn't help that Frank was less talkative than Mahad, and Jarrod older than them. That last fact should mean he was better at handling adult things like death than the kids, but really, what was there to it? In Ghilsaer, how one died mattered to how one was remembered.

Weird mutations that turn one into ... something dreadful and inhuman ... what was the right response to that? Oh, my sincerest condolences for you being forced to kill your maddened friend, whose corps psychically compelled you to let it live?

Denial sounded good right about now. See things from the bright side. Life could be worse! He was atop a hover craft on an exciting alien planet, wind in his hair, the thrill of adventure ahead of him, and best yet, speeding away from a city full of murderers. While trying to find a child who was most likely dead by now.

Positive thinking didn't lift his spirits much, but the sliver of blue on the horizon did. At first he mistook it for another optical illusion, but when the yautja started chattering about a big water or something, he looked a little harder.

The dry sea bordered on the wet sea, as it turned out.

Jarrod had only seen oceans on old pictures online. He'd never put much thought to it. Lots of water, something he'd never see anyway.

Now with months of grueling work behind him, he couldn't wait to see it. Something about months of being over worked, injured almost every day and forced to clean rooms with human skulls in them had made it much easier to be excited about something like this. He leaned over the vessels' edge and stood on his toes to see it grow closer and closer.

The first hints of salt air told him it'd even be a sea like had once existed on the human homeworld. That he'd find that here of all things.

Their destination was a small outpost in the form of a pyramid, which normally was staffed by a few old hunters who had never amounted to much in life. Their task was to supervise the area and keep the natural balance; a pesky job since the strongest always died. They were in charge of provisions and importing animals from other areas, the necessary and underappreciated wildlife management.

The settlement was on a massive rock that ebbed into a sandy surrounded, on the tip of a rock arm coming from the hills. Nra'tex-ne docked on a rock outcrop and stepped off first, where he was greeted by one of the managers. He then introduced all his students, while the humans stayed aboard. they weren't introduced. While the students filed in, Nra'tex-ne signaled that they could get off.

And that was it. No orders on where to go or what to do, so Jarrod rounded the pyramid to go jump in the ocean. Surrounding the pyramid were more massive rocks that he had to scale, but they grew smaller the closer he came to the beach.

He took one big leap off the final rocks and landed in the sand. It was still a hundred meter or so to the water, but that was crossed easily enough.

A yautja roared something behind him, the sound strangely distant. Turning, he saw Kea'chethi run towards him over the rocks. Oh crap, what now?

 _Now_ was an explosion of sand right before him. Out burst a gigantic worm that spread open a four way mouth, tipping toward him. Toothed tongues shot out, snatching at his legs.

Next thing he knew, Kea had grabbed him in the neck and hauled him back to the rocks. Atop the nearest over five meter tall, she dumped him unceremoniously.

The monster disappeared back under the sand, leaving a quickly collapsing hole. The ocean appeared much more distant beyond it.

"What the hell was that?" he squeaked.

"Zaghon'tau," she said. There was no talking with yautja, so that was all he was going to get.

"Thanks," he said, still staring at the hole. Kea gave him a somewhat demeaning pat on the head and walked away. He followed her back to the pyramid at a slower pace.

Ayo waited for him inside the door.

"You okay?"

"No! I was having a moment with the ocean and then giant earthworm happened!"

"They're local wildlife, unfortunately. Giant worms that move in response to sound. Once they die, they burst open and release several bipedal space chicken things that move on heat, which in turn will spit out one eggs that results in partially airborne specimens, which carry eggs for the first worm phase. Let's hope we're out of here before that happens."

"Wait, those things are related to the ziou'ra? They also lay eggs through their mouths ..."

"Same clade at least," Ayo said. "Similar reproduction system, very different diets and sizes. Anyway, weren't you listening? She did warn us not to go on the soft spots."

"Eh, I did hear her say something but didn't really think about translating it."

"You didn't hear? Why not?"

He dramatically pointed to the sea. "Because of _that_."

"It's a big puddle," Ayo said with a shrug.

"How can you say that? We've grown up on a desert planet! Maybe you had a better home, but for me there have been days without water! Now look at that! It's ridiculous! Listen to it, I had no idea water can make so much sound. I think I can even hear creatures inside it."

"Ah." Ayo held up her wrist band. "Anyway, Jor isn't here to help us. It doesn't have access for long distance contact like this, not without suspicion. Kea literary can't understand a word of what you say, so if you want to thank her or talk to her about anything else, you better put more effort into it."

"Oh come on, don't be ridiculous. I can keep up with their language if I try. It's just ... all this ..."

"You should get inside. There's no telling whether you can still get a heat stroke," Ayo said.

Jarrod raised his arm, which had a thickening layer of slime over it. It wasn't quite what sweat should be, and he didn't want to find out what 'adapting' his body would result in. Still, that just meant that any plans for swimming would have to aim for the night.

He let Ayo show him to the sleep quarters and lo, Nra'tex-ne and Carly were arguing there.

"I didn't really know him," Carly said. "Not gonna pretend to mourn, let alone do any fancy rituals of remembrance."

"When a pack member or family is lost, they should be paid respect. I know for a fact that humans have similar traditions!"

"What, so you perform those customs for every single one of your family that goes into the hundreds?"

"When their closer family finds it appropriate to request me to do so and I am present, off course."

"Well, guess what? Neither Melanie nor Mahad asked me to do any mourning for their friend. You wouldn't like us mourning anyway, not with that regime you have Ayo on."

Ugh, better stop this before Tex decided to arrange a ceremony just to be contrary to Carly. Jarrod tactfully put an elbow on Carly's shoulder and leaned on her. She glowered, but he ignored it.

"Look, we'll have a small ceremony later, okay? It's just that our human rituals are weird. We can't do them full out."

"How so?"

"We, eh, have this special holy food and smoky stuff that I bet would get lots of complaints from sensitive noses. And we sometimes act a bit weird. I don't think we can do our _rituals_ here. And Carly's right, it's gonna take Ayo out of commission if she participates. Unless you want us to use yautja mourning style, which would just be a _pretense_ to us, but, eh, yeah."

Realization dawning on yautja faces looked almost like with humans.

"We're in the outskirts now and this place has plenty of empty rooms," Nra'tex-ne said, more to Carly than to Jarrod. "I can give Ayo and you time off if you had just bothered to ask."

Carly glared at Jarrod, but played along. "Well, whenever I try to explain our human values, you don't give a shit."

"So you just assume I would disrespect any and all of your traditions? Do your thing and ask me next time something comes up."

When he was gone, Carly asked, "Why did you do that?"

He held up two fingers. " _You_ need to stop pissing him off by flaunting your lack of honor, and _I_ need an excuse to brew some addictive substances because between me and the ocean are giant earthworms, Carly. Giant earthworms with toothy tongues."

"You sure you didn't already take those addictive substances?"

"If I am, it's a lousy distraction."

**· · · · · · ·**

The yautja here were no different than at the city and were thus most pleasant without humans around. Jarrod joined Ayo in exploring the area, which wasn't as desertlike as the overwhelming yellow initially had made him believe. Plants here were just of a yellow shade, blending easily with the same sandy rock that they had to move across.

Near soundless herds crossed over the grasslands, which Ayo claimed they would hunt later. Jarrod personally was more interested in the plants. Back when Kea had tried treating humans for their illness, he'd noted some of the lovely effects of her medicine. Here, he smelled several plants that reminded him of the best bits, so he collected them.

The ocean was always tantalizing on the horizon, but he hadn't found a safe way to get there yet. Maybe he's suggest that Oihana and Frank might be hiding near the caves that Ayo claimed were further down the west beach, to have an excuse to go near the water. For now he was content with exploring the area by hovercraft and gathering the right plants. Since the reason he was taken along was to help carry bait for the worms, he had bags to sneak specimens into. The bait itself were live bugs, so he ended up with lots of bites, but what else was new?

After gather the plants came the truly touchy part. Kea'chethi hadn't killed any humans as far as he knew, so consulting her didn't feel entirely too hypocritical. Plus, she hung out with Melanie all the time now, having assigned her as assistant. Kea'chethi's interest in humans was dim, but she didn't consider them much of a nuisance and could be persuaded to experiment with plants. So he sought her out.

By now, she had transformed her room in a workshop. Bottles, bundless, a small pot over a fire, and wordless books to dry plants in. There also were some more modern tools. If this was her travel pack, her true laboratory had to be awesome.

She herself was in the middle of the room, glowing dimly and picking seeds out of a helm with the tops of a claw.

"Hey, Kea'chethi," he said in English and with his face carefully lowered for submission. She looked up, tilting her head curiously.

"So, how well do you understand me without helmet?"

A shrug. Hopefully that meant she was mimicking him and not some forewarning of oncoming violence.

There was an odd hard bit in the back of his jaw that could simulate clicks, like a hard bit had grown there on a muscle he wasn't aware he had. Oh well. Had to be more mutations.

"I hear happy about plants here," he said in broken yautjan. "Can be taste good."

She tilted her head.

"Want I make ritual medicine."

"Medicine for what?"

"Feeling high."

She squinted her eyes a bit. "Growth?"

"What? No, not gaining height. It's an expression. I mean, it makes us feel better." Drat, that was English. "We experience good. We mourn. Death Frank."

"Feeling better is less important than healing." Okay, that he understood perfectly. She'd said it plenty of times while treating them. "Especially the healing from loss."

"It not! Bad word. It ... Battle Dreamtime by beverage. Human Battle Dreamtime Memory Death People."

When all she did was raise an eyebrow, which he was sure she had picked up from humans because her brow was rather rigid, he was ready to give up.

Then she laughed. "I heard Nra'tex-ne mention we are to avoid humans for their mourning rituals. You were messing with him, weren't you?"

He didn't know what to say, even if he had some words.

"It's okay," Kea'chethi thrilled. "Karga'te and I have been messing with him since he offered to elevate us. You need tools preparing them?"

He nodded. When she held out her hand, he gave her the heavy backs, which she could lift with one hand.

After examining the content, she emptied her table and began dividing the plants.

"What now?" she asked after that.

"Oh, we're doing this? Great. Okay, that stuff over there," he said, pointing at a bundle of blueish flowers, "that stuff had a really trippy effect when you used it to dull Mahad's headache. And that white plume stuff seems to give an adrenaline kick and ... right."

She didn't follow any of the string of words and just grabbed what he pointed at. Methodically, she started plucking the plumes. She tossed him the blue bundle together with a grinder and bowl. He caught them, and went to work.

**· · · · · · ·**

Five days later, he had what could adequately be called ... well, he wasn't sure what. It was fluid, it was trippy, and it went best when you burned another concoction. Definitely don't mix either up, he'd learning the hard way that sniffing that incense was emphatically not fun.

Life went on outside, with disgruntled students who didn't find traces of escaped humans, and proud students who returned home with dead worm heads, and more disgruntled students because Tex expected them to do their daily training on the ground and run when the worms came. Cheering up was needed, so Jarrod went around with gifts.

Melanie had gotten herself a quiet job with the eldest of the yautja, who had difficulty seeing. She declined the beverage, but accepted the incense. With what might have been a small smile, she said she liked the idea of smoke for mourning. It fit how he went down much better than a burial. Jarrod worried for her, but could only say a quiet yes.

Mahad had also been put to work for the local yautja. They were even less up to date with technology, and Mahad compulsively tried fixing everything. He didn't accept either incense nor beverage, but after Jarrod explained the mourning excuse, Mahad shrugged and said he could join Melanie later. Jarrod couldn't tell whether he pretended to be fine, or just focused on the work as his own form of distraction.

Carly wasn't to be found either in her room, nor did he risk asking anyone for what job she might have been given. He ended up returning to Melanie's room, which was now thick with smoke. For Carly he left a package with both, and a note written on plant leaf on what to do with it. Melanie mumbled something about the incense being excellent, and he urged her not to use Carly's portion. Hmmhmm was all the answer he got.

Having gotten a few noses full of it, he might not have been thinking the clearest when he ran into a somber Nra'tex-ne and got the bright idea to play nice.

"Hey, Tex, try this?"

The yautja looked up at him suspiciously, or perhaps annoyed. It was hard to tell when he had no idea how to interpret his expressions. Yautja had these extra ridges on the sides of their eyes, that made two extra bits of frowning left open for interpretation.

In any case, the only reply he got was an averted face and a grunt.

"Kea approved. Good stuff."

"Is this your mourning ritual?"

Jarrod nodded. "Part of it. Still need a room, but getting there. Have spares."

One more suspicious look, then Nra'tex-ne grabbed it from his hand and walked away.

When Jarrod returned to Kea'chethi's room (which might have been ten minutes alter or several hours, time was shaky), she was utterly stoned and the rest of the batch they'd prepared was gone. She said some yautja had smelled it and wanted more.

"Oh. Great." Jarrod was either in big trouble or the clan was going to have a party.

**· · · · · · ·**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the zaghon'tau, imagine the critters from the Tremors series being imported here once upon a time. Third stage wouldn't leave much traces of how it got there cause they fly by farts. This is a very serious fanfiction that is honored by their inclusion.


	30. Better Regret

**· · · · · · ·**

All of his life had been a lie, only now his mind had cleared did he see the truth. The sky spun in five directions. Flares of color grew sharper by the minute and he could see further into the distance than even with his helmet on, every scent was finer and every simple movement felt more true than any old battle. Participating in the human mourning ritual was the best choice he had _ever_ made.

Walking was like floating in ephemeral space, if ephemeral space had more obstacles to walk into, but that was okay. It didn't hurt, he could handle a few knocks.

A few other yautja wandered through the pyramid, similarly mesmerized. They were very stripey.

Maybe the world had a better use for the human word beauty if it looked like this all the time. For yautja, their equivalent was just something close to describing a female yautja had good shape to bear children or a glorious hunt or good prey. No wonder humans meant so much _more_ with their word.

It was positively blasphemous to think that the gods had not equipped them with enough language to handle the world, but surely this was just the result of people having forgotten true meaning. Maybe he would like to call a female yautja beautiful just for her stripes, or anything other than her hip ratio, or honor, or power.

He envied humans sometimes, whose culture had a standard of close living. He envied them for thinking things like this so easily. He should value honor and the hunt the most, should aim to prove his strength and reproduce, everything else was a trivial side matter. Now the world looked in color, what he should value was flipped around. None of it made sense, had it before?

Carly would talk back and she'd probably agree. At least on this. He couldn't make her think like he did unless she already did so on her own accord, but this they agreed on, right? How would Carly look in color?

He grabbed his spear, three nets and walked out of the building. The main hovercraft was gone, but the maintenance elders had their own, smaller hovercrafts.

**· · · · · · ·**

Small as this pyramid was, it had enough space for everyone to get their own room. The humans were relegated to the lower quarters, but who cared. Privacy! Granted, there was massive, poorly patched hole in the wall that indicated the foundation was close to the rocky edge. Carly hadn't seen any of the worms yet, but Jarrod might've been understating their size. Oh well, she'd just leave the door unlocked and be exercise silence.

In light of this decision, she hesitated to dive in when Jarrod left her a gift of intoxicating substance. Sure, a yautja could barge in any time and demand she do some menial task, or worse, Tex could see her like this, but it might be years, or even decades before she got to have fun. That was worth the risk, right?

Also maybe she got loud and giant worms happened. Better check first.

The scent from Melanie's room tipped her off she had gotten a similar gift. Melanie seemed to be doing marvelous as she lay flat on the ground, grinning and whirling her arms. She wasn't very noisy. At least the incense seemed safe, so Carly started with that.

The world got very pretty colors, but there wasn't enough light down here, so she wandered to higher levels.

The liquid stuff didn't seem too dangerous, but it did make people loud. She couldn't tell whether that was the yautjaness or the intoxication.

Very few yautja had hunting in their blood, to her smug confirmation. Some fought each other, others had sex, over there they danced and yet others aggressively pursued forbidden things like vandalizing the walls with oh my, _art_. Really, the only thing they all had in common was matchless energy.

Even the three janitors were affected. Two were barely coherent messes scribbling on paper, and the third was just in the middle of taking drops of the liquid drug while lying on his back in a hallway.

Nra'tex-ne was missing a marvelous opportunity to chastise his students about disgracing the Path. It took some hazy effort to remember where his room was, but when she got there his weapons were gone. Him too. Incense burned here too and a flask from Kea's room lay on the bed.

Right. Nra'tex-ne just _had_ to be the one yautja who actually felt like hunting even when stripped of higher brain functions. (It distantly registered she hadn't checked whether anyone else left, but this was soon forgotten.)

She returned to her room after some time and lo, there was a bunch of bright green spots dancing on cream to yellow with a dose of dark auburn stripes.

Second, a two meter long centipede thing writhing around her room awkwardly. Not a worm, so all good.

Third, the cream and stripes was Nra'tex-ne.

"Tex. What am I supposed to do with this thing?" Carly said as she poked the centipede thing.

"I caught it! Alive."

"Yes, it's awesome. You're also bleeding. That's _not_ awesome."

"I don't mind," he said with a low rumble, taking a step towards her. Carly turned away, but a wall had decided to suddenly stand there. Before she'd found the non-wall direction, Nra'tex-ne was already before her and leaning over way too closely. She slipped below his arm, turned and faced his general direction.

"Nra'tex-ne, you need to leave," she said, unable to hide her nervousness. "You're acting _very_ unyautja like."

He tilted his head to the side. "But that's what you want, right?"

"Eh ... yeah, you might have misinterpreted that."

By Yautja standards, to say _might_ was ridiculous. He was bringing her stuff he had hunted. He was also not looking her in the eyes, like he usually did, he looked at her overall.

"Are you checking me out?"

"But you look too."

"Look, I'm a frustrated puny human with isolation issues who can't help it that your people barely wear anything. Now get lost."

He took that lowered head but proud posture thing when he walked out, an overacted version of his "I'm disgraced but not dishonored" posture. He just had to make this difficult.

When he was gone, she grabbed the centipede thing, rolled it up and pushed it out the door. Hauling it to the nearest window took a while, especially when avoiding doped young yautja, but she got there. She pushed it out the window, whence forth it rolled down the slope. Only then did it occur to her it might've been dangerous, and she ought to have verified whether it was ... meh, the thing had been intoxicated. No biggie.

Evening was cool out in the desert, the sky absurdly starry and colorful ... crap, she could actually see the different colors in the the stars. Red dwarfs, blue giants ... that better be Jarrod's drugs and not new mutations.

When she turned inward, the dim red light also had extra colors, so she bet on the drugs. The light being bigger than stars, the colors were better than in the sky. She gathered up every glowy thing she could find and brought it to her room. It was time for redecoration.

Carly would have been perfectly content to spend the next day playing non lethal moth to the lamp, but Nra'tex-ne just had to come back. Glowy blood was very pretty in incense vision, having extra shades of purple and blue and abs. He didn't bring anything into her room, but did pull her along to the nearest window that looked onto the dock.

He'd tied a giant dragon thing onto one of the smaller hovercrafts. It bled a bit but was also alive.

"Are you trying to flirt with me?" she blurted out, this time in yautja language.

"Is it working?"

"No. You are very bad at it."

When he put a hand on the back of her neck and massaged, it was the best thing and had no business being so and he needed to get out of this room before she did anything silly.

Turning around helped. No matter how pretty the colors were, yautja were hideous. Mandibles, split tongue, she couldn't even imagine making out with that. She pushed his arm away.

Sober Nra'tex-ne wouldn't want this anyway, and neither should she. Or would he? What had they really been arguing about all along? Was he really so dead set on the Path that he was unable to interpret "no need to kill things" as "she wants her trophy offerings to be alive?

"Tex, you're not in the right mind. You're acting in a way that's ..." It had been entirely too long since she'd gotten laid herself. "You should look up one of your wives asap. They're probably just as high as you are, so they're not gonna care for the void of skulls you'll be presenting."

"Right."

He turned around and left, muttering about finding them.

It took Carly five minutes to remember that his wives were in a pyramid very far away, and Tex twice as long before he appeared at the door again.

"They're not here and I'm not supposed to go back until I find humans," he said. "So I found you."

He didn't look so bad from the distance, if she didn't look at his face, so she almost said okay right then.

Wait. Hold on. She was high, this didn't have to go anywhere. He was high too.

"No, no, bad idea." She shoved the door shut.

It sounded like he went back up the stairs. This was better. Quiet and lights only.

The door fell out of its socket. Either this door had gotten stronger or she'd been made weak ... wait, that wasn't right.

Nra'tex-ne had heard the sound, turned to looked back and promptly lost his balance. He tumbled back down the stairs and just laid there, sprawled out on his back. He tried to grab hold of a statue that stood much farther than he seemed to think it was. She sighed, skipped over and helped him on his feet.

He leaned on her. Close contact was not helping her drug-eroded resolve, but looking at the mandibles did. Eww.

She helped him back to his room. He seemed confused when she did not follow in, but made no move to get her in. She smacked the door shut and leaned back against it. Considered opening it again.

This shouldn't be difficult, but the world was very bright and loose right now and maybe she should go focus on that.

She spent the next hour reveling in the enticing but innocent nature of colors. And failing to keep her mind entirely on those colors. As a last resort, she took a risk with the liquor.

It smelled nothing like the alcohol scent she'd expected. More herbal. Jarrod had described at as liquid drugs. Or licking drugs. His handwriting hadn't been the best. Given how thick it was, maybe it was supposed to just be licked with a little bit at a time, but it was a very pretty green color and that seemed like a waste. She chugged it down.

The shock of energy and illumination and clarity was enthralling. She hadn't lived before, this was everything and the universe.

One night that wouldn't occur again, when the nitwit didn't worry about the Code or his honor. Did she really want that to slip by? Hmm, mandibles versus person she kinda sorta liked to hang around with and who had great anything-not-his-face.

Hey, it wasn't like she hadn't asked people in the past to forget her own ugly face.

She downed another drink, then slipped to Nra'tex-ne's room.

"Wanna go somewhere quiet?"

**· · · · · · ·**

When the excursion had been announced, the entire class had laughed in disbelief. Chase and capture some human cubs? Please. Get real. Clearly this was a joke from Nra'tex-ne's weird mother.

Five days later, with Ayo sitting in their midst and enjoying the wind through her dreadlocks while only sporting minor injury, nobody laughed. Five students had been injured and two students had been eaten by ground stage zaghon'tau. Ayo's ability to keep still and know just when to move and where to dodge was uncanny, as was her ruthlessness. She was supposed to just flee, but had played bait into places she knew were dangerous. Of course, if anyone died in a challenge like this it was their own fault. Karga'te had no intention of telling Nra'tex-ne that Ayo might have gunned for blood just a little too hard. He'd probably just ignore it anyway, like he did with Karga'te's crimes.

It got the other students excited for how hunting humans would be who were older and more experienced than her, when they were actually allowed to kill them. Surely they'd be even more difficult in their own territory, they speculated, than this wild place that Ayo had only had a few days to explore before it started?

Karga'te had been the one to finally corner her, which he was pretty sure just Ayo being fed up with the chase.

When the arrived back at the outpost, Ayo hopped off first like she wasn't even tired. She said something about taking a bath, but slowed down the closer she got to the entrance. The _open_ entrance.

The fellow next to Karga'te would've jumped out after her, but stopped when he noticed one of the smaller hovercrafts half pulled into the ground. Pointing that out resultedin the old supervisor of the group shrieking. It'd been his hovercraft and he couldn't count on a replacement anytime soon. How terrible.

The hovercrafts shouldn't make sound when parked, so they shouldn't attract wormy attention. The rest of the Tex's class swarmed onto the dock, curious what had happened, but Karga'te approached Ayo.

Before he could ask what was up, a waft of bizarre scent hit him from inside the pyramid.

Ayo took a deep breath, made her _follow me_ sign and shot inside. Karga'te was not in the mood for the hovercraft salvage mission the old guy had just ordered, so he followed her.

Ayo waited around a few corners. She had tied a damp cloth around her nose and held one out for Karga'te. "I'm pretty sure the smoke's an intoxicant. Jarrod's been collecting plants lately, I'll bet he used to be a gang brewer. I don't know what he can do with alien plants, but best to avoid breathing too much of it."

He scoffed at tying cloth before his mouth, but scoffed more at losing his common sense.

Most people in the small pyramid were fast asleep and strewn around the place in utter chaos. The scents of blood, mating musk and herbs filled every room. A few yautja staggered around, but didn't pay them attention, and Karga'te paid them none either. He and Ayo made they way to the subterranean quarters, where Kea and the humans had their rooms.

The amount of sleepers got thicker the closer they got to Kea's room. Some were piled on each other in the narrow corridors.

He took a sprint to her room, but found it barricaded. A hint of female mating musk hung around.

"Kea?" He rapped on the stone door. "Are you alright?"

Groaning came from the inside, which turned into almost sing song wailing. Karga'te relaxed at hearing her typical half drunk blabbering; most of it consisted of nope nobody got me, with some flavor words. "They're all asleep now, you can come out!"

Kea probably got up and started unbuilding her barricade, or fortifying it. No way to tell yet.

Who did appear was Ghuran, coming from the room opposite of Kea'chethi. He clutched a poorly tied arm, but looked quite thrilled. He clasped Karga'te by the shoulder, leaning so hard he almost dragged him down. "You're back! Your missed the party! How bad for you, it was great."

Karga'te shook his hand off. "I'll live."

"You're not living good enough," said Ohtremnek, the other resident from that room. He looked in better shape, but must've also been in a fight.

"On the contrary, I spent five marvelous days and nights watching Ayo get chased. She got Tgaer'ta and Kheudia-zan killed, but I caught her—" Ayo elbowed him in the arm. "—Anyway it was better than your miserable attempts here. Could you even think about how much trouble she'd be in if she got pregnant?" Karga'te snarled.

"Let's not forget the potential trauma," Ayo said, which got her three confused looks. "Oh, right. I bet your culture would shake that off as weakness."

"We did a fine job," Ghuran said, with his eyes focused a few inches to the side of Karga'te's face. "We were awesome. Knocked them out with one punch."

"Each. One punch each. Not all of them at once," Ohtremnek just had to clarify.

"You could have just locked the hatch to the lower levels," Karga'te said.

"Oh. Yes. That _is_ a thing that exists," Ohtremnek said.

"Ugh. Ayo, go open all windows you can, then get back and help us drag these asses to the upper levels."

"Nope. First I'm finding my brother," Ayo said. "On that note, where's _your_ brother anyway? Wouldn't he have remembered at some point that Kea'chethi could be in trouble?"

That was a very good question.

**· · · · · · ·**

Sober reality announced itself to Carly with declarations of depravity : dear miss Markens, we regret to inform you that you have screwed a serial killer. Not just any serial killer either, the special kind that takes skull trophies and arranges them for show.

Haha. Ha. Haahahahahahahahahahaha.

What on earth and in space _had she been thinking_?

Well, she knew _exactly_ what she had been thinking, and none of those thoughts agreed with the mental wall she'd thrown up. She'd live here till she could escape and she wouldn't let herself sacrifice what little humanity she had. This was the enemy of her entire species. Yet here she was, on a rock by the sea, wrapped in the same blanket as the aforementioned serial killer.

"I was drugged," she told herself. "Drugs bad."

Delicious, liberating badness that led to the first time without tension in years.

She sat up, at first careful not to wake Nra'tex-ne, but when a few tugs of the blanket didn't stir him she stopped being careful.

A distant thunderstorm obscured the sunrise, though a strip of light lay between sea and cloud. The wind would lead it along the shore, rather than cross it, so she didn't worry about getting inside.

For a while she sat there, waiting for the last fog to clear from her mind. She only missed the colorful illusion a little, but the dark here and now felt more familiar.

Well, aside of the monster. He was familiar at a distance, as an obstacle and ally. Someone to let her stress run free on, who could be provoked when nobody else could. It had never been meant to go further. It shouldn't have been possible to go further. She'd been clear enough to realize if they got it on, it would be safest if they weren't discovered. He'd been clear enough to choose this location at least a mile from the pyramid. They'd needed to navigate a maze of rocky outcrops to get here, hampered by his poor balance. So why hadn't either of them reconsidered?

The way he lay there, he just looked like a monster on the outside. If it was just that, it wouldn't be misfit for her. Maybe she could even turn it into a joke, but she wasn't sure she could joke about the things he did and found righteous in others. Long held disgust regained its power with every passing moment, and with it came fear of what he'd say once he woke up.

She pushed out from under the sheets, flinching at sore spots. Rapid healing was to be expected, but they still could get infections. Time for a bath.

Her clothes lay strewn around the rock outcrop, further down what might be a carved elevation or just a natural formation. She paused at the carvings on the rock, not recognizing the letters, before gathering her stuff and climbing down to the sea.

There was no beach, the rocks edged right on the water. She dumped her clothes and got in.

The waves were wild, spurred by the storm. She once had read something in a story about sea currents dragging people away, but had no way to assess how to recognize that. She'd never expected to even see a sea, so why bother learning about it? She stayed close to the shore, at first holding onto a rock until she was sure the seabed was safe.

As little of the rush of the past weeks fell off of her, but everything that was wrong remained. With the cold water biting at her skin, it was easier to wash away the thin layer of slime and sweat she'd gotten used to. Her skin almost felt human again, but never the same. A little too hard, too scarless, too tight around her muscles and bones.

It would never be over. Even if they escaped the planet and defeated Jormungandr, the memories would stay. Tonight was something she would have to deal with, a humiliating thing to be tucked away in the recess of her mind. She couldn't tell Jarrod, and the others were just children. Maybe she'd get a fancy therapist in the future and this was be the embarrassing key discussion when it wasn't even the worst to happen.

The urge to get clean grew stronger. She started to rub at her skin, rinsed her hair, scratched her back. That's when she discovered the spikes on her spine, like they'd be if she were emaciated. She wasn't. Something new grew there. A wry laugh escaped, which she quickly clammed down. She might have cried, but maybe that was just the sea water.

When she was absolutely sure no treacherous scent remained on her and no wayward emotion could take over, she climbed back up.

Nra'tex-ne still slept. She considered waking him, but decided against it. Whatever would follow, she wasn't ready yet to talk.

She returned alone. The pyramid's interior was quiet and its air more stifling than usual, which said a lot. Just how much had Jarrod and Kea'chethi made?

Down in their quarters, Carly concluded they had made too much. Karga'te and his cronies were dragging intoxicated yautja up the stairs, piling them up outside the hatch. A groggy Melanie informed her that a lot of them had come for Kea'chethi, but Ghuran and Ohtremnek had been in better shape and they'd easily kicked their asses. Kea'chethi and Jarrod were fighting an intense battle of paying attention to Ayo, who tried to explain them they really should stop brewing more stuff and just please, wait a few hours till you can think clear. Mahad sat nearby, pressing a herbal compress against his head, while Melanie tried to be inconspicuous about the liquor she was sneaking out of Kea's room.

"Look who showed up too," Karga'te said. "Got a clue where my brother is?"

"Stoked out like you wouldn't believe," Carly said. "He wandered out to some big rock at the sea with markings carved on it."

All four yautja laughed.

"Of course. Tex gets high so he goes to a sacred rock while everyone else fights or fucks," Ghuran said. "Are you sure you're related to him, Karga'te?"

" _Half_ brother," Karga'te said.

"There's a rock near at the sea?" Jarrod asked. "Can I go into the water there?"

"It's sacred so no, but who cares?" Karga'te said. "Go fetch my brother while you're at it. I want him here before the janitors figure out Kea and Jarrod started this."

"Why don't I go fetch him?" Carly said. Please don't let anyone come across Nra'tex-ne while he still smelled of her. "I mean, you and Kea were nose first on this stuff for longer than anyone. I don't think you should be navigating rocks when there's worms around."

"Right, worms bad," Jarrod said, nodding. "I'll see the sea later."

Whether intoxication after effects or simple thoughtlessness or fear, she should've woken Tex up right away. She still didn't want to talk to him, so she walked slower than she could. Maybe the right words would come, like they appeared so easily whenever they debated. Maybe not.

That Kea'chethi got turned on but still was lucid enough to remember why she shouldn't mate worried Carly. Ohtremnek and Ghuran had likewise been out of it, but not in a way that made them forget key things, just auxiliary details. What did that say about herself and Tex?

By now a blanket of mist covered the sea, lit gold by the risen sun. Nra'tex-ne wasn't on the holy rock anymore, which had been left meticulously clean.

She spotted him down at the water, on an even rock right at the shore. Well awake and clothed, with the sheets from his room neatly folded next to him.

Carly climbed down and jumped the last bit, landing a few meters behind him.

"Hey there. Maybe my memory's bad, but you didn't tell me that big rock we were on was a sacred place. Testing your own Path, or what?"

He shot to his feet and snarled, "Go away."

"Nope. We have a situa—"

"Go away!" he roared.

She took a few deliberately slow steps back, then turned back around. "This far away enough?"

He flared his mandibles and his brow dropped. His mandibles were pressed close together, she could just see him preparing to say something obnoxious.

"You screwed something you should hunt. No escaping it," she said before he had a chance.

"If you hadn't been around, that part wouldn't have come out."

"That's how it's going to be? I'm at fault for existing?"

"You should have been a yautja."

Oh, that did it. "Go to hell! It'd just be another wife up in your pyramid, not arguing but _ordering_ , like the rest of your bloody society! It would not be me, Tex. I'm a human, with all the personality and filthy history that comes from being born in the bowels of a wasteland. Now, you can be in your happy honor dream as long as you want, but spare a moment to sort out your students and keep Kea out of trouble, okay?"

"What?"

"All your students followed your intoxicated example and now the entire place is knocked out cold. Kea helped Jarrod brew this stuff. Unless you want like, Karga'te to take leadership and get in a fight with the old squad, get your ass back there. You have responsibility."

The anger flipped off to be replaced with an almost scared expression. She wasn't the only one who had needed a moment to get back.

"I also had responsibility to the Path. I can't just go ..." He might have said, _and to you_ , but she wasn't sure.

He made himself relax, which took a few seconds before he unceremoniously dropped down. Leaning his arms on his knees, he gave an irritated snarl that ebbed away.

She almost wished he'd stay angry, because this looked like the silent treatment. Sitting down where she'd stood, she waited.

It took him a long time and five aborted starts before he finally looked at her again. All the fire was gone, tiredness remained. Right then, she felt sorry for him. For herself it was one mistake, but what would it be for him? No doubt they had all sorts of religious ideas about the sacredness of reproduction. Bloodlines ran core to their society.

"This was a mistake," he said, covering his eyes with a hand. "I should have known better. I wasn't entirely without reason. I should not have put you in a situation where you felt like you had to."

"Eh, it wasn't that bad and I looked you up on my own," she said, though it felt foul in her mouth. "It's been long since I got laid and, ... look, neither of us were clear in the head, okay? Why would you even want me otherwise?"

"Because you're sitting here."

"Huh?"

"Do you think my wives are going to sit at my level, or not tell me to shut up if I counter argue anything they say?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't really explain it."

"Does it need explaining?" He was so uncomfortable, mandibles twitching, never quite sitting still, plucking at the sand.

"Never mind," she said, tossing a pebble into the water. "As far as I'm concerned, we were friends with benefits for one night when we're usually logical debaters or something fancy like that. That sounds better than hunter and prey."

"That's not good enough," he said. "I need to understand it."

"Welcome to my bloody world, Tex. You're a murderer, yet some reptilian part of me doesn't care. I used to be able to make sense of myself because all parts of me worked for the same thing. So you want conflicting things too, surprise. That happens all the time if only you just notice yourself. Like you, ahem, educating your prey?"

"I didn't forget what you are," he said. "I just ... I wanted you to become a hunter so you could prove that humans too can have true honor. That could set in motion a change that would render the need for debating a moot point."

"All the same, but still under the code. In the meantime, you won't let me see your trophy wall. We can go over this forever without getting further. Let's just forget this night happened and keep doing that."

She got up to walk away.

"Carly. I wasn't testing my Path, I had stepped off it altogether. It was so easy to decide, and it wasn't even for a deep reason. It got kicked off by liquor." His voice sped up with every word, like he had to get it out in one breath.

She stopped in her track, finding herself with the sudden absurd hope he could be reasoned with after all. Careful, she asked only, "How so?"

"I lost my inhibition, and that included ... " There went his eyes behind his hand again, an almost human gesture of shame. "That included what I do to keep myself true to the Path. I do doubt and I do want things that aren't on my destined Path and sometimes, I want to go contrary just to see what it's like. Karga'te lives and thrives as I do, despite having no drive for the Path of the Hunter. As do you. There must be something to that too, isn't there?"

"That's it though," Carly said. "There's nothing to it. At least, nothing grand like you want in your life. People like me just live. There is no equivalent to your Path within me under some other name."

"There _is_. You're bothered when I kill humans, you say, yet I've never smelled the fear of death around you when I get angry. You don't think I'll kill you. You know it would be better to appease me if you became a hunter, yet you don't. It's not all self preservation that you act on when you argue back."

He was right, in a way. To Carly it seemed so natural to be bothered by senseless death she hadn't even realized this was a deeply held ideal. That might've been nice to realize if only his blind spot wasn't so much bigger, and so contrary to her own. The splinter of hope left, and got replaced with dread. She'd come here to get him for practical reasons, had meant to make light of their actions and yet they were right back at their conflict. Two things were clear : without drugs they'd never be on the same line, and she wanted that too much.

"I'm tired, Nra'tex-ne. We're either back at square root one or we reached the end. Can we sort this out later?"

"Later." He stood up without looking at her. "I'll go sort out my students."

**· · · · · · ·**

Mahad chewed on some bitter leaves, which helped against the burning haze in his head. While he hadn't exactly been on top of the incense, he'd still gotten enough of it to get the very pretty effects.

The door to his room creaked open and Ayo slipped in. "You were right, Mahad."

"Great," he said without meaning it. He took another sip of water, which didn't help enough.

After Ayo closed the door, she sat next to him. "I found at least six other yautja who took both the incense and the liquor, yet have lessened after effects. All Hukcha'mengache Stve and Nataeloixren Mra. Ohtremnek is the only one of Chuiyeminde Tchea who stayed awake."

That confirmed it. The yautja who had spent some time near Ghilsaer City had better resistance against the negative effects of intoxicants. Not as good as the humans, though, who lacked reflex issues, could coordinate pretty much normally and didn't black out.

Theories of mystery radiation on Ghilsaer were absurd, but the only other explanation was that the yautja had eaten things from the city. Specifically, genetically engineered things. He'd have theorized aloud about the meaning of that if Ayo hadn't looked so out of it.

"Hey sis, are you okay? Did something happen during the chase?"

She shook her head. "No. I mean, yes, but that's not it."

"Then what is?"

She shrugged.

He put an arm around her shoulders, a little awkward. "I'm here."

Ayo had never needed his support, nor had anyone else. Trying for cheerful interest, he said, "While we're here without being stuffed in different houses, you could catch me up on what made you say no when I asked you to join the geek squad. You didn't trust Jor, right?"

"Like hell I didn't," she said. "But it doesn't matter anymore."

"How come? What made you see Jor was rotten?"

"It's safer if you don't know. Please, don't ask again, try not to think about it."

"But—"

"You didn't believe me back then. Please trust me now and stop questioning."

Curiosity had always been hard to fight down. Back then, he might have listened to how fishy Jormungandr sounded if he hadn't wanted to believe in it so much. "I'll try."

"I would like to talk about getting certain jerks killed, though," she said with a half smile. "Wanna hear that?"

He nodded, forcing a smile of his own. "I could use the distraction."

**· · · · · · ·**


	31. Vile Advance

**· · · · · · ·**

As much as Jarrod liked the ocean, a few weeks here had him long for the rainforest. That was a hard desire to balance because he hated living in the main pyramids. He couldn't even be sure where he was less likely to die.

Maybe it was just being grouchy because right now he was at the edge of his breath, swimming through a dark, half flooded cave with Tex's murderer in training students behind him.

Jarrod climbed on the rock and planted his hand on the timing machine. Done.

Behind him, five unblooded yautja surfaced, sputtering curses half drowned in the water. Jarrod didn't smirk, didn't look at them. Instead, he pretended to clean dirt off his legs. It was important he didn't read as if he gloated, which would result in retribution later.

No matter how much Nra'tex-ne said they shouldn't be offended the humans were a real challenge, they were. It was inevitable. It was hard to respect the creatures you were supposed to murder eventually.

Somewhere in the future, humans would die because these monsters now learned how to keep up with the agility of humans underwater. Maybe he should just die before anyone learned more bad things from him, but he never got far enough to really _want_ it. He wanted life, and dammit, he wouldn't let them ruin the ocean for him either. While the unblooded got their judgment from Nra'tex-ne, Jarrod took another dive.

This time he swam calm, just for fun. Letting himself drift on the soft current, he gathered seaweed, shellfish and other plants from below the surface. Well, seaweed and shellfish was what he called it for lack of better words. What little he knew of earth didn't look much like the things here, much as Mahad claimed there were unusual morphological similarities.

All that really matter to Jarrod was what he could do with it. He and Kea'chethi worked on a less intense variant of their whatever-it-was. Getting stoned at the end of the day was one of the few real pleasures, and that wouldn't last of it was forbidden.

By the time he was done, Nra'tex-ne had finished his evaluation and led his students out of the cave. Jarrod called out he'd stay a little longer, to which Nra'tex-ne nodded.

Nobody really cared what the humans did when they weren't needed. As long as he didn't bother anyone or defile anything sacred, he could go as he pleased.

He found a high level rock in the cave, where he spread out what he'd gathered. No point in carrying useless things, he sought and tossed rotten bits and poisonous critters that resembled edible cousins.

One of them was a small crablike thing, a rare treat. He stared at the small creature for a moment before pressing its head in. Months ago, all yautja food had smelled dreadful and had made him sick. That was before, not now.

Normally he'd cook these things, like the yautja did. They went through a process to make the food more palpable to them, since they had slow digestion. It ended up tasting so soapy, the humans usually made their own things. Right now, it smelled like he didn't need to cook.

He bit down on the bug. It didn't taste bad anymore nor did it repulse him as much, and he was hungry after all the swimming.

How much easier life would've been if he'd known back on Ghilsaer that he could just move into the desert, and his body would mutate to make survival possible. If he hadn't been bound to living in a city, he would've been long gone. There'd been rumors of other settlements far away. He'd have found those, maybe started up a transport somehow ...

From this spot, he could see a hovercraft carrying students return. Another unsuccessful hunt for the missing humans.

They only ever found traces of Oihana. The ruse wasn't questioned because of that, other than complaints about how difficult it turned out to be. They'd expected to find escaped humans easily, dead or alive, but to only find traces of the smaller and probably less competent child? Please, that shouldn't happen. Surely this was a cheat, right? Nra'tex-ne always said it wasn't, that these were top notch humans because why else would he have accepted help from them? That they'd been given transport off the dying planet because they were good enough.

Good enough. Pffft. Nra'tex-ne had been a bleeding wreck when he'd wandered into their home, because of some injury disrespectful teenagers had given him. This same ass now rolled with the whole ruse without ever even asking whether they knew where Frank had gone. Even Ghuran had tried needling them about it.

Unlike usual, the group didn't disperse immediately. Ohtremnek was there; off the hovercraft first. He looked around and asked a passing guard where the nearest human was.

Curious now, he stuffed his bags and climbed down. "Hey, Otter, what's up?"

Ohtremnek met him at the entrance to show him a bloodied rock. "First time we found her traces accompanied with blood. There's no clear cause for it, like zaghon or any other prey animal."

He only spoke in human tongue when he was about to ask something technical, but that had usually been to Mahad or Frank about something Jarrod didn't understand.

"What'd you want from me?"

That got him an odd look. "It could be menstruation. I read there's cases where it starts really young. Is there a way we can tell the difference?'

"Menstruation? What's that?"

Ohtremnek's mandibles dropped. "Female humans bleed once a month as part of their reproductive cycle, when discarding unused ova. It's a pretty intense event, I don't know how you could miss it. Advanced yautja societies learn about it cause it helps to know whether you're fighting someone who isn't in top shape."

"Uh, sorry, dude, we don't have strong smell and I was kinda on the run from the law folks. Ask one of the girls."

Ayo and Melanie just passed on the boulevard up at the pyramid, having come to ask whether Oihana had been found. They were nearly a hundred meters further down the cave and Ohtremnek was about to cross the distance, but all of them had heard.

Ohtremnek scaled the wall easily. A little worried now, Jarrod followed, but Ohtremnek had already asked by the time he joined them.

"Bleeding as part of reproductive cycles? Why would that even happen?" Melanie cast a look at Ayo, who shrugged.

"I'm pretty sure that's not anything that happens on Ghilsaer," Ayo said. "Maybe it's specific to certain subspecies of humans only?"

"Humans _have_ no subspecies," Ohtremnek growled. He'd stopped walking and narrowed his eyes.

A silence fell. Jarrod could guess what the others were thinking; this had something to do with their mutations.

Ohtremnek trailed after them as Ayo as she went to practice somewhere alone. He asked her about human customs, she affirmed that for humans it was taboo to speak about sexual intercourse with children so maybe they had similar things about other bodily functions, and men tended to be grossed out by women's bodies. That matched things Ohtremnek had also read about, at least. Thing is, that just made him resolved to ask Carly, the only female adult human.

Melanie whispered at Jarrod to go find Carly as soon as possible and make her tell to Ohtremnek that not talking about the bleeding thing was a weird human custom.

Once they got back, they really had go get Jormungandr to get them better informed. If it wanted to stay hidden, it shouldn't rely on them to keep covering for all the weird shit, bloody hell.

Jarrod listened around the area and found Carly in rocky area lining the shore. In a small cave, she sat buckled forward on her knees. Thinking she was injured he ran to her.

"Carly! What—" He stopped short. A pile of drab lay before her, then she vomited again. There was a strange piece of thin layer in it, like shed skin of a snake, along with thin wiry flesh and other things. Some bits were moving ...

"Ewww, Carly, what did you eat?"

She looked up, wiping her mouth roughly. "Just some quente."

"Are you nuts? It's like eating soap, no wonder you're sick." He tried not to notice the moving bits ... didn't work. Something that looked like a piece of vein curled up.

Carly looked just as disturbed as he felt, but not surprised. Why?

"You must have eaten something that forced you to mutate ... oh crap, you're not going to go like Frank? Maybe he infected you!"

She was about to speak, but instead threw up again.

"Well?" he asked when she could speak again. "Did anything lethal happen?"

"It's probably not any of that. I never died, I just ..."

"Well, what? If something is wrong with you, I've gotta know." He put a hand on her shoulder, half hoping to pull her up. "Carly?"

"Did you know that humans and yautja are anatomically compatible?" she blurted out.

If that little revelation had an avatar, it had to hire a submarine to sink in. Jarrod didn't even know how long he gaped at her.

"No, no, oh hell no. Carly, this is some sick joke, isn't it?"

She gave him a wry smile. "Ready to be an uncle?"

"It's Nra'tex-ne, isn't it? For hell's sake, _why would you do that_?"

"Well, he was willing and every other human here is either too young or family. I don't exactly have a lot of options. That and we were both high on _your_ concoctions."

"You've been—"

"Stop yelling, we don't want any attention."

He lowered his voice and squatted aside of her, ignoring the mutating mess as well as he could. "I know the shit me and Kea made was different, but we could still think, right? What were you thinking?"

"Sex mostly. Also, the colors. Spectacular colors, man."

"And now you're _pregnant_ thanks to your little romance adventure. Great."

"I prefer moderately congenial enemies with benefits," Carly said. "Pretty sure I'm not _not_ in love."

"Oh, that makes it so much better to fuck the serial killing space monster. Gosh jolly gee, what a relief. Carly, you probably caught a disease. You could still turn out like Frank."

"Now that's a lot better reason to worry than my xenophilic bed trip. About that .. " She took off her jacket and pulled up the wiry plate across her back. All over the length of her spine were tiny bumps. "This ain't me being skinny, but I'm pretty sure it started before the sex. Too late for me anyway."

Whatever was in their bodies wasn't just DNA that made them superhumans. It was either inventing new things or executing a hitherto untouched blueprint.

Jarrod reached around his own back. He had similar rough clothing as Carly to withstand yautja handling, so it wasn't easy to feel. Carly straightened and jerked up his shirt. He could feel her fingers over his spine.

"Slimy like all of us, otherwise you're normal. It's just me, don't worry."

"Oh no, I still have to worry for you. How are we going to hide this? Ohtremnek is already suspicious of us. Apparently humans aren't supposed to be fertile round the clock, we didn't know. He's coming to you later, you gotta tell him that it's a human custom not to tell kids about the bleeding and ... damn it all. How are we gonna survive this?"

Carly pressed her lips together. "Are we sure we can't just tell Otter? He's more of a scientist than a blood purist or code fanatic."

"I and Frank and Mahad worked for his clan, you know. Their science thing is still in name of the code and of strength and all that. We don't want yautja to know this, trust me."

"Not even Tex," she muttered. "I know. Let's go back."

She stood up. Now the bulge on her stomach was clear.

"Oh hell ... you gotta stay here or they'll be curious."

She looked down. "Point taken. Tex already asked whether I'd been binge eating. I let him think I did out of guilt."

As she sank back to the ground, Jarrod could have sworn something moved in there.

**· · · · · · ·**

Just a little bit more. She gritted her teeth until her jaws bled and squeezed the pincer further. It wasn't really a pincer as much as two curved blades haphazardly strung together, but it worked.

Her right arm dropped the floor. Melanie laughed and wailed at the same time. Success!

She crawled away from the arm, pressing her back against the wall. Anytime it'd regrow. Any time.

Her detached arm twitched a few times. Its fingers twisted and tried to crawl.

That was all, all the way until Ayo entered the room.

She froze in the doorway, then rushed at the twitching arm. She tossed a blanket over it and threw it in a container under her bed.

Next she pulled Melanie on her bed and started bandaging the stump. Once Melanie wasn't cringing at every movement, Ayo asked, "What is this about?"

"We need to explain," Melanie said. "We tell them this is part of Frank. He didn't survive in the wild, you see."

"Don't you think they'll be suspicious when they find an arm right when you lose it?"

"It'll regrow."

Ayo took her by the shoulders and made her face her. "You arm is _not_ growing back, Melanie. Why did you think that?"

"We get no scars, _ever_. I scratched myself a lot when we arrived here, nothing happened." She thrust her other arm at Ayo. "Look, nothing! All shut! Only old scars are still there."

Ayo looked her over, but it didn't seem to convince her. "Wounds heal differently than missing pieces, Melanie."

Why was she always so calm and in control. Anyone real should go mad from this place.

"You're not right, you know. We never were really humans," she sobbed. "Never, never. Don't you feel anything?

Ayo pulled her in a hug.

"We're not really surviving, we're right in our element." Melanie held onto her with her one arm. "We're gonna breed. It's in my movements, Ayo. Sometimes I want Jarrod or Mahad, and ... I get it now. We're _always_ fertile. It's not the female yautja being weird, it's us! We're not really mutants, cause that implies we used to be human. Who knows when the last _real_ human was in Ghilsaer? We don't. Jor probably knows."

"I'll talk to it once we get back," was all Ayo said.

"That's it?" Melanie pushed her off. "We're in hell here. Say something else! Stop being so robotic!"

Ayo stood up. "Robotic? Would you rather that I cry, or freak out over the blood, or sob along with you?"

Melanie cringed. Nothing Ayo said was intimidating in itself, not even her voice, yet it felt like she'd gone too far.

"I don't spite you people for being emotional messes, but you don't get to criticize me for locking up. I'm the only one who even has a foot out the door. Jarrod and Carly get stoned, Oihana ran away, and Mahad ... we could have _stopped_ Jormungandr if he'd listened to me years ago. He only started talking to me now it's _too late_. So you'll have to excuse me if I try to keep my composure. Someone has to."

With that, Ayo picked up the arm, wrapped it further in a blanket and marched out. She somehow managed to slam the sliding door.

**· · · · · · ·**

Ohtremnek was on guard duty for the night, again. That's what he got for not spending as much time in the fighting pits, not enough rep to not be pushed around. He could best some of them in a fair fight, but it wasn't fair when he was outnumbered. Ghuran was off somewhere crafting things and Karga'te tried to teach the zaghon'tau tricks. Maybe he should get some friends with more interests in common, but then again, there were reasons weirdos tended to stick together.

So here he was, watching for flocks in the sky or herds on the horizon. It wasn't breeding season, so it surprised him when something actually moved towards the settlement. Just a line figure crossing the beach, too far for heat view but just dark enough to stand out against the evening shore.

By the time the figure vanished behind nearby rock outcrops, he had a pretty good idea whom that silhouette matched.

When she rounded the nearest rock and waved, it was confirmed. As if she hadn't vanished like a bird in the burning wind, Oihana was back.

Worrying about how to explain her return could wait, she had go get off the ground. Ohtremnek jumped off his post and crossed the rocks. He reached a hand down to get her off the sand, but she shook her head.

"There's no worms around," she said. "I'd notice. Also, hi, long time no see."

He dropped next to her and picked her up, climbing back up right away. No need to be careless. There he set her down again.

Being away from the city had done miracles for her, she even looked better. She had a shallow wound on her arm, but it was already healing and it didn't seem to bother her. Slung around her torso was a crude bag made from plant hide and vines, which was stuffed with all sorts of things. Some scents he recognized as food, others were odd.

"You were gone so long. I take it you know Tex cooked up an excuse for you? Can spirit talking get you that? What were you even doing?"

"Karga'te and his mother did. Meidache didn't like it, but she helped. And, uhm, there's another thing that has to be covered up. Can you help, please? I promise it's gonna be interesting, you can't tell anyone. If you don't, I'll help you learn a few interesting things."

That was more even word flow that he'd ever heard of her.

"What'd you need help with?" he asked, half wondering if it had anything to do with her luggage.

"Carly's sick. Follow me, please." She tugged on his arm.

They went into the rock maze between the outpost and the sacred rocks. Bending away from the sea they turned down cramped tunnels most yautja would never take for fun. Ohtremnek had to shed armor just to squeeze through.

The other humans had been on this same path, but a sickly scent nearly drowned them out. The further they went, the stronger it became.

After countless turns and crawlspaces, he finally saw a human. The form sat on a rock, probably Ayo or Jarrod.

"Hey, Jarrod," Oihana said.

The named shot to his feet. "Oihana? You're really ... and Otter?"

"Yes, me, and him. We're gonna help Carly."

Jarrod met them halfway across the narrow passage.

"It _is_ you. Where the hell have you been, kid?" Ohtremnek thought he sounded angry, but the human embraced her.

"With better monsters," she said, hugging back only briefly. "But Carly's got a bad monster now. Let us see her."

"Okay then, come on into our little cave of misery," Jarrod said. "Carly's not really awake right now."

Ohtremnek pressed his mandibles close together and kept his breathing shallow. To enter the cave he had to get on his knees, but it was spacier inside.

Indistinguishable under the disgusting scent, he only recognized Carly by sight. She lay on her back, half popped up on the uneven floor. She clutched her abdomen and her throat was dangerously swollen. Every now and then she gasped for breath, belching out a terrible odor. It wasn't quite like rot, yet it caused a similar repulsive sensation.

Mahad was at her side, messing around with some herbs in water. Ohtremnek pushed him aside and put a hand on Carly's stomach. Loose, cold skin hung from every exposed skin area, most of all on her belly.

"What do you know?" he asked Mahad.

"She's got alkali poisoning, that's the only thing I'm sure of."

He had never seen alkali poisoning before, but he understood the problem. Yautja blood could neutralize the acid of the hardmeat blood to a certain extent. Humans were more neutral in general but leaned towards acidity. Maybe if she had ingested a huge dose, that would explain some symptoms.

"So what are you doing about it?"

Mahad held up his little herb bowl. "This plant is kinda like citrus from our world, it helps with low blood pressure. Right now, I'm just trying to get her conscious."

"Slapping on some of our medicine didn't work?"

"It's not a wound or an illness, this is something her own body does." He sounded like he should be explaining what, since he clearly knew more. "It's, ehm ... how did you even get here?"

"He's going to have to know, Mahad," Oihana said as she knelt down aside Ohtremnek.

Mahad almost dropped the bowl. "Oihana?"

"I'm here to help out," she said. "Otter, Carly's pregnant."

"Oh god, really?" Mahad said. "I hoped Jarrod was just overreacting."

Carly was pregnant _and_ had alkali poisoning. Okay, weird coincidence. She didn't have fat build up anywhere else, but he was pretty sure losing skin wasn't normal for pregnant humans. The timing seemed off too. On top of that, the only adult male human was Jarrod, who was related to Carly. Mahad was a teenager and might be able to impregnate a female human, but would he want to? Would Carly be depraved enough to get together with one of them? That didn't sound right. If she was that kind of person, there was no way Nra'tex-ne would ... hang out with ... wait ... why did that feel correct?

He looked at Oihana. She pressed her lips together and nodded slowly.

Seriously.

"Do you have any qualms about abortion?" Oihana asked.

No, and if he had he'd reconsider for this. Ohtremnek wasn't exactly a biologist, but one didn't run across mutations every day.

Sure, he should report this to the superiors. If he believed in their strict honor. Ratting Carly and Tex out would result in a lot of social drama, keeping quiet got him something new to study. Besides, if he got Nra'tex-ne in trouble, Karga'te would never forgive him.

"He'll help us," she said.

"I'm gonna need to get some equipment and medicine," Ohtremnek said. "Get her awake before I start and explain her what's going to happen. One of you guys go get a few wet towels, and stuff her mouth because she _will_ scream. We don't have anesthetics strong enough for this here and the noise carries around here. Where's Ayo?"

"She's scouting," Mahad said. "And Melanie's injured so she can't help either."

"That something we gotta worry about?"

"Not for now," Mahad said a little too quickly.

Whatever, there was more interesting things to do now.

Getting back in and out of the building again was irritating, he'd have liked it better if Oihana'd told him right away what he had to bring. Still, dodging and sneaking was worth the risk of being reprimanded for leaving his post.

Ohtremnek had done a few tests on these humans in his free time, if they could be called human. Rather than a double DNA helix they had five, three with codes he could make no sense of as they often changed. If allowed to grow in a controlled enviroment, they'd eventually break the weaker glass. The resulting flesh reminded him of hard meat structure, but it was far more versatile. Ayo and Mahad's were the most chaotic but rarely did anything, while Oihana's was the most stable and slow.

Really, that one of them got pregnant by a yautja wasn't even the weird revelation. That honor went to the father being Nra'tex-ne. All of Karga'te's efforts to be blasphemous without getting killed down the drain by a single act of his holy brother.

All he had to do to get the most unique thing in the galaxy was a simple c section.

He wasn't actually sure how to do a c section. The closest he knew in theory was how to perform the procedure for removing hard meat infections. Oihana indicated she could help with doing things right somehow, whatever that meant. He'd find out.

He returned as quick as he could, a bag clutched under his arm.

Carly still wasn't awake, but Oihana had tried using spirit speech to make her understand what would happen. Some day he'd figure out how that power worked, but he'd keep it with DNA for now.

Jarrod stayed outside, pacing around. Inside, candles had been set up for light. Mahad just finished putting towels below Carly, while Oihana piled water bottles and food on a nearby rock. After that she made herself small in a corner.

Without ceremony, Ohtremnek knelt down, pulled up Carly's shirt and took out a thin knife, now promoted to scalpel. Mahad scrambled by to place a cloth in Carly's mouth to prevent her biting her tongue.

He cut open the skin cross to the body's length, right below the short stomach muscles. The stench intensified so much that even through his mask, he had to switch on the air filter.

Underneath the red blood, Carly's flesh was composed of dark greys and browns. There might be something like intestines there.

He had about two seconds to take that in before Carly folded up. Eyes shot wide open, she dug her fingers into his arm and spat out the cloth. The shriek coming from her was nothing human.

He grabbed her hands and moved behind her head, pushing her down. While setting a knee on her arms, he clammed a hand over her mouth. Oihana got an irritated look; she should've warned him.

"She doesn't really think, it's instinct. She thinks she wants to keep the child, but it's not her normal self," Oihana whispered. She pushed herself further into a corner, hiding her face behind her knees.

Jarrod looked in. Mahad stood up, blocking view from Carly. "You heard Oihana, right? It's gonna be okay, it's—"

"Get the knife, you need to continue now," Ohtremnek said. "Jarrod, hold her legs."

Jarrod did as he was told, but Mahad acted less swift. With shaking hands, the boy took up the scalpel. He had to steady himself with several breaths before leaning over.

Under Ohtremnek's directions, Mahad increased the incision and folded the wound open further. Almost he cut a strange wiry thing, but Oihana did her spirit speech thing to make him stop; Ohtremnek noticed it and so did Jarrod. She seemed to just be sending at everyone to be sure.

Two thin layers covered the suspected womb, yolk and amnion, bloated around the umbilical cord. Cut that first to keep the fetus calmer, there it got energy. Carly tried to bite when Mahad sank in the knife, but she was weakening from her struggle and pain. Ohtremnek didn't need as much force anymore to keep her still.

"Oihana, can you take it out?" Mahad asked in shaking voice. "I don't think — I can't tell what it is."

She crawled closer, going around so she was on the other side from Mahad. Without really looking, she reached in. Slowly she pulled out a ... what the hell was that?

It was a fetus, but it could not belong to either a human or yautya. The umbilical cord was ridged and sturdy rather than soft. The thing itself had a white, hard skin that was segmented and lined. Moving black eyes stood large in the squarish translucent head. Tiny arms moved around more than they should. Something was so wrong about it, it hovered on an edge between living and just not dead, but artificial.

Mahad gagged. "I can't take this much longer. Can you do the stitching?"

Ohtremnek eased his pressure on Carly's arms, but she nearly shot up. The scream she let go echoed outside. He pushed her back down and forced her mouth shut. "No, I can't."

Mahad got up. "Gimme a sec." He didn't go vomit somewhere, but chugged down half a water bottle.

When he returned with the needles and threads, Ohtremnek said, "We could take out the entire womb."

This was mostly fueled by a morbid curiosity, he knew how to keep the thing alive in a laboratory for further tests. However, there was also the benefit of preventing further trouble. Last time Karga'te had discovered he liked a certain kind of sex he hadn't dropped it, neither had his mother. Safe bet that ran in the family.

"Good idea," Oihana whispered. "It definitely does."

"What was that again about being at least intrusive as possible?" Jarrod growled — actually growled, unlike a human.

It was probably directed as Mahad, but Ohtremnek answered, "If she complains about her fertility, just tell her this is like removing a tumor and she shouldn't have fucked a yautja. Be real, I know we're the best, but who does that when they don't even know their own species?"

"She didn't even listen to _don't philosophically debate with the yautja_ ," Jarrod muttered.

Right then, the fetus bit Oihana. She winced, but held on. Careful with the thing more than herself, she pried its mouth off.

"Lemme just kill it," Ohtremnek said.

She shook her head and began humming as she walked out.

The further Oihana went, the calmer Carly became. Eventually she slackened entirely. She mumbled something, but didn't respond when Jarrod spoke to her. With a deep sigh, she sank into unconsciousness.

Much better. "Jarrod, soak up all this extra blood with the towels. Mahad, clean your hands and take the sterile sheet out of my bag."

Ohtremnek now let go of Carly. When it was clear she didn't move anymore, he took his original position at her side. He began with cutting out the womb, then the ovaries. The internal human reproductive system had similar principles as yautja, though with all the wiry membrane it was hard to tell anything apart. He was pretty sure he cut up some intestine as he worked, but he didn't worry much about it.

Both the organs were absurdly tough, it didn't deserve to be called soft meat. Still, it was flexible enough to come out whole. He wrapped it in the sheets, after which Mahad handed him a small bundle of herbs. These gave off a powerful scent, which Mahad said would cover the stench. Had Jarrod made it? Didn't matter, it'd do the trick until he got his prize to a better container.

He didn't talk to the not-humans further, but was intent to question Carly later. He wanted to know everything. When it had started exactly, how fast it progressed, whether the alkali poisoning came from food or otherwise. Whether she was still sane.

First he wanted that fetus, though.

Oihana's scent led him hundreds of els away. He found her in another cramped space, an alcove with a small entrance. Earth had gathered here, but it probably didn't connect to the lower sand where the earthbound zaghon'tau could get. The top entrance was small enough to prevent any accidental walker or fliers getting in either.

In the middle of this place, Oihana was busy digging a hole in the ground. She was crying. Really? Despite being old enough to walk and survive in the wild. How embarrassing.

Behind her a small fire burned. The fetus was nowhere in sight, leaving one place for it to be —Oh, crap, no. She'd destroyed it.

"Why did you burn it?"

"It's the only way it really dies."

"Not what I asked. I wanted to investigate that thing," he grumbled.

"I know. I would've let you have it, but I didn't know it'd be like this. You can still have all the other parts, but this has to die. I'm sorry."

Dammit. The fire was nearly out and there was nothing to be done about it.

Oihana stood up and opened her bag. Out came more of the incense bundles, which she scattered around the extinguished fire.

How exactly she set fire to them was hard to tell, she leaned over every time and he got no clear look. The resulting smoke masked the vile scent quite well. That answered what had been in her bag, leaving one question he could probably get an answer to today.

"What's the real reason Ayo was not here?"

"Ayo's planting part of Melanie's skin some places, they'll find that soon and think Frank died. I'm gonna have to help Melanie with her arm now. You can go home now, and thank you for the help."

Oh, right, he hadn't thought of what next yet. He'd like to return to his laboratory soon, and well, technically he'd won the fake challenge by capturing Oihana.

Right then Oihana dropped everything and shot off, but he blocked the nearest exit path. Twisting on her feet, she launched herself at the nearest rough wall and tried to climb up.

No avail, he just plucked her off.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Please, let go," she said. "They're still hunting me."

"Tex's students will stop hunting you if you stay. No one else is," he said, well aware of the increasing scent of fear. "There's already an excuse for what happened with Frank and that dead hunter, you said so yourself."

"No, it's not that. Please, I'll be back when it's safe. I need to help the others too, but I can't live in the city. The priestess wants me."

"Who?"

"Azenkastral's."

"How is that a bad thing? Should Ustran'ku want you as a servant, you'd be off better than anywhere else. They are the healers and no one else keeps such a strict adherence to the code."

"No, these don't! Maybe the priestess of your house, but not the one of Nataeloixren Mra."

As she spoke, she bombared him with disjointed visions she had of Azenkastral's inner sanctuary. Nothing in his eye sight changed, but his mind was torn through the halls into Azenkastral's inner sanctuary. Pain laid over everything somehow, even though nothing had a shape to fit that.

What was she showing him?

At this very moment, a message arrived in his helmet from those very same priestesses. It congratulated him on having found the runaway human and asked him to deliver it. No one of such a high rank had ever spoken to him and how they knew he had her was, well, supernatural.

He might be a scientist, he wasn't about to challenge superiors with abilities he didn't understand.

Oihana became very quiet.

The message told him Oihana was a spirit speaker and they suspected she might use her gift to manipulate people by extracting dangerous information or make them believe things. She had to be handed over to the priestesses who would be able to control her better than the likes of Meidache's house would.

"I can't actually brainwash people. Please, it doesn't work like that!"

The implication of just how she could use her power hit Ohtremnek like a hard meat out of the cold. Karga'te had long since been weary of the girl for exactly this reason. Ustran'ku didn't even seem to suspect there was an emotional layer to her powers, and she was using those very powers right now on him, to convince him to let her go.

"No, enough. I'm bringing you to the city."

**· · · · · · ·**


	32. Slave Places

**· · · · · · ·**

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

There was nothing to do today. Nra'tex-ne had throw him from a lesson for being uncooperative along with two others, so he was resigned to his room without any fun. Imagine that, Nra'tex-ne punishing people by denying them things to do, that was novel. He had been prickly since the drunk phase, which had only gotten worse once Carly ate something bad and vanished into the rock crevices.

Scrape.

So now he was here in his bunk, out of things to do, face down on his bed. Ayo had once said that before the alien invasion, she had been the epitome of a bored petulant teenager with little to no aspirations and too much time on her hands. That had _sounded_ wonderful. It wasn't in practice.

Scrape.

Karga'te hated waiting. He had no idea whether his ziou'ra were still alright or had their skulls on some kid's walls. He wouldn't even be allowed to pick a fight with who ever did it. Maybe they'd say he could just get new ones, but he wanted these. This was not what he'd had in mind when asking Uich'ernite for help, dammit.

Scrape.

Ghuran lay on his back with one leg over Karga'te, carving a tiny sculpture from rock. Contrary to Karga'te, picking at things meant he was relaxed.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

Scraaaaaape.

Karga'te shoved his leg off. "Go do that somewhere _away_."

"But my own housemates think this is silly and I wanna finish it," Ghuran grumbled. "Not have it tossed out a window."

Karga'te might've tossed it himself, if there had been a window. He turned on his back and considered tending to his weapons. He'd done that already, but not as thoroughly as Nra'tex-ne preferred, and exactly because of that, it didn't feel like a good past time. Nra'tex-ne was a nuisance lately, he wasn't gonna comply.

"Why are you so restless?" Ghuran asked. "S'cause Tex is in hyper drive?"

"Maybe."

"Carly should hurry up and get better so he has someone to argue with again."

Even Ghuran saw the connection, though he missed one thing. Nra'tex-ne pointedly _avoided_ her, despite being willing to break pattern for important things. Maybe he didn't think it was that bad, but he didn't even ask about her. Not what Karga'te knew from times he himself had been sick.

The door creaked open and Ohtremnek staggered in, sporting a dislevel mandible.

"The pauk happened to you?" Karga'te asked.

"Oihana's back. A bunch of rookies didn't believe I caught her fair and square."

"Yeah, I don't either," Ghuran said. "What, she just walked up to you?"

Ohtremnek bristled, but didn't say anything.

"Spill it. Brotherhood silence, promise," Karga'te said.

Ohtremnek closed the door behind him, but didn't approach. "She did walk up to me. She wanted me to ... get Carly a stomach surgery. She noticed she was sick and wanted to help, but after that she bolted. I did catch her."

There were a few situations under which yautja caught anyone : prey, criminals and slaves. Karga'te sat up, so he could look him in the eye better. "You actually _caught_ her?"

Ohtremnek averted his eyes, sensing Karga'te was irritated. "She didn't want to stay."

"She should've faked her death or something," Ghuran said, trying to sound casual even as he sat up and stored away his art.

"That's not what we do," Karga'te said.

"It's got nothing to do with you or — I didn't suddenly start believing the slave caste is right. My house has none and I always agreed with that. I didn't want them to run around because, because ... there's something _wrong_ with them. We need to know what they are. The priests will hold her and in time-in time my house could get a look and ... "

Karga'te sat still, glaring without a blink. Ohtremnek shifted on his feet.

"When we met I thought you didn't sell anyone out," Karga'te growled. "It's sounding a lot like I was wrong."

"It wasn't selling out, it was safety! You said it yourself, their spirit speaking isn't right. They used it on us back on their planet. We weren't like us. They made me think back then it was being given balance, but you were right, they have no business messing with our minds."

"That was Bakarne," Karga'te said. "And I nearly killed Oihana once cause I overestimated what her kinda spirit speech can do."

"You wouldn't know any better than I what is going on. I bet she insinuated that, that's the whole point of their power."

"More like I threw her in a pit of cranky ziou'ra." Karga'te stood up. "Then got a fine try at just how much skill it takes to tame freaking ziou'ra. She can't handle brainwashing us."

"Yeah, Otter. _You're_ acting not like yourself right now, not us," Ghuran said. "We had a promise. Do anything that affects one of us, we tell each other first."

"Us? When did humans become part of _us_ anyway?" Ohtremnek snapped. "Nra'tex-ne, Kea and now you're getting friendly with them. They're _humans_."

Ohtremnek had been the first to really befriend a human, and it'd been Oihana. No way he'd forgotten that.

"She'd want you to think you're not brainwashed," he continued. There was less conviction in his voice. "She'd not ... Karga'te, you. You're still acting on it. Isn't it weird that you suddenly decide to tame animals? It's unyautjalike."

At once, Ghuran rolled off the bed just in time to avoid being shoved off. Karga'te lurched at Ohtremnek's neck and pinned him against the wall, pushing her low arm up against his neck.

"Don't you dare tell me what I am as a yautja!" Karga'te snarled.

Ohtremnek was smart enough to shut his mandibles, but that irritated Karga'te more. With silence he didn't know whether the warning landed.

Ohtremnek just shoved him away and darted out the room. Karga'te didn't chase.

"That went well," Ghuran said as he scrambled up. "So what now?"

"I don't know," Karga'te said as he sat back down.

Ghuran started scraping again, but now it felt trivial. He got lost in an old memory.

**· · · · · · ·**

The amount of plants in deserts was exhaustive and Kea'chethi sunburned easily, so she preferred to move by night. That required lights though and meshed poorly with the training schedules once Nra'tex-ne decided to make things difficult. She'd originally recruited Melanie to find things for her by day, but a near sighted outpost elder had taken that as indication Melanie was good at seeing, so now he'd claimed her for chores.

Kea'chethi might've been able to assert herself against a forgotten male janitor, but it wasn't worth the hassle. It'd be read as trying to gain rank in a disgraceful way. Anything she did would, even speaking back against the 'suggestion' she fix up some old spears because surely she knew about how to maintain hardmeat matter, right? There were a lot of assumptions on what she knew, despite not having access to advanced education beyond Nra'tex-ne.

Didn't mean she had to do it right when and where she was 'suggested' to do it. She decided to go find Melanie first.

While on her way to the storage rooms she'd most likely be, Kea picked up her scent sooner than expected.

Down these halls was a ceremonial flooding area, for hunters to clean the dust off after a long desert trek. It was dry now, and adorned with curtains against the sandy wind and night cold. Melanie sat in the lowered area against a pillar, at the intersection of two halls.

"What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for someone. I have to ask something," Melanie muttered.

Cuts covered her skin and tears her face. When Kea leaned to the left, she couldn't see Melanie's arm at all. There was no fresh blood, only loose bandages around the stump. A poorly tied stump, she could see broken skin through some pieces.

"What happened?"

"Oh, this ... Can you tell people who ask that it got gangrene and you took it off?"

Melanie's wound was already regrowing skin. That was not only too fast to be credible, Kea didn't want to be known was a miracle worker.

"Only if you cut that open again and pretend to heal like a normal meat thing," she said. " _And_ tell me why you're healing so fast."

"Okay, I can do that. I can because I'm a monster."

"What kind?" Kea asked without expecting a clear answer. Ohtremnek had told her as early as their arrival here something was odd about the blood samples. There were a lot of odd things in the world, herself included, so she didn't fret over it. Yet.

"Wish I knew. It's what I was gonna ask Carly about. She's been very special about sickness lately."

That interested Kea'chethi too, so she sat down on the edge of one of the passageways and worked on the spear there. Melanie was in no condition to go gather plants now.

"Can I talk to you?" Melanie asked.

"You already are."

"No, I mean ... about things. Not like slaves or monsters, but like ... like, what would we be if we'd been born elsewhere?"

It frightened Kea'chethi a little how quickly she had an answer to that. "I once was on a planet full of rainforest for an emergency landing. There wasn't much interesting to hunt, but I considered fleeing and staying there, because it felt right. There was much I liked to do there and it didn't really bother me there was no honor to gain from the hunt. Sometimes I think there's honor in the craft of medicine too."

"It's all about honor anyway, right? Some humans have that too, but I don't get it. I'm ... I don't know."

"Really? I doubt that. Where would _you_ be, if you had a choice?" Kea'chethi asked.

"If I'd be at home, I'd be at school, preparing for a job that's get me rich enough to ... no, I'd never get off the planet, but maybe I could move to a city further north. If those were ever real, and not Jor's fabrication. Maybe who ever was at the other line was another cyborg. In my better world, there'd be no cyborg. Just people who were smart enough not to live in the desert. They'd have more green, and I would be ... I don't even know what kind of jobs there are for place not a desert. I bet something like you do must be around."

"There always are," Kea said. "I've learned of this during my visits to another clan. Humans have extensive agriculture methods. They maintain their forests and fields in ways the yautja never even think about. They terraform and raise the green where ever they go, when they don't destroy it."

"Can you tell me what it's like?"

Kea'chethi didn't know much, but she didn't mind talking. It wasn't often someone wanted to know what she knew. Usually they asked Ohtremnek.

Melanie put together the vision of a life she wanted to have among humans, one that would never hold, but Kea'chethi didn't argue. Blood loss, stress, whatever got to her, she dealt with it through fantasy. That was another traits humans had perfected so much. Story creator could be a human's entire profession.

The strange thing was, Melanie hadn't been much into telling stories, especially not at yautja. Even when recruited to work with Kea'chethi, she had never opened up. That she did so now was ... what exactly?

It became clear when the curtains moved aside further down the halls, bringing along the sickly scent Carly had caried.

"There you are," Melanie drawled. "Had fun?"

Once Carly passed the last curtain, it was clear she hadn't had fun. Her skin clung to her bones and muscles. Even in the warm rays of the sun reflecting on brown stone, she looked gray.

Kea'chethi did a double take, there were small bumps at her joints and lining around her muscles. Her stance was strangely arched back, she needed her hand on the wall to keep steady, and her legs were wide apart. If she'd registered what Melanie had said at all, she didn't find it important to respond.

"What the hell happened to you?" Carly asked, eyes fixed on Melanie's arm.

Melanie shrugged and grinned. "Nobody told you?"

"Only Mahad was around once I woke," she said. "I don't think Jarrod took the, eh, the thing very well."

"Nobody took your _thing_ very well," Melanie said. "Though maybe Jarrod took it worst. He just staggered into the herb room this morning, muttering about that shit that came outta you, and got stoned."

"He's still there?"

"Yeah, but don't expect to talk to him."

"That's okay, I just gotta—"

"Gotta what?" Melanie pushed herself up. "Talk?"

"Who took your arm off?" Carly asked.

"I did. Cause we have to cover for Frank _dying_. For some reason."

Kea'chethi stopped working.

"I'm not angry at you, Carly." Melanie now stood up and wandered over to Carly. "You can't help it, right? You've got a monster inside you. Can you control it? Is that why you're still alive? Tell me how."

"I took more because I didn't quite want him yet, but it felt right. There's nothing else to it."

"That's it. Right. You _wanted_ to want it. It's gonna make us want to." Melanie turned around to Kea. "Yeah, we _should_ die here. Kea will do it nicely."

She took a step closer to Kea'chethi, balled her fist and whacked her in the face. All she achieved was bruising her fingers on the sharp mandibles. It was so absurd and pathetic Kea was only stunned, dropping the spear on the ground.

"Come on, kill us! Kea, come on. Kill us. Then burn us. You have to burn us," she said with a grin too toothy. Melanie tried hitting her again, but Kea'chethi grabbed her arm and shoved her away.

Carly was there to stop her from tumbling over. When her hand landed in Melanie's back, it felt like plates shoving over one another. Her spine seemed to push back.

"What do you think you're doing?" Carly hissed in her ear.

"We need to die before Jormungandr uses us or before anyone hunts us down. Hunts will be worse. That's more thinking than _you_ do."

Carly tensed up and hesitated to speak.

"Is Jormungandr one of your gods?" Kea asked, more to diffuse the tension. It was an old reflex because agitated yautja, especially female ones, were dangerous. These were just humans, but they felt like the same threat.

Actually, why was that? Melanie behaving like a territorial female was not common fare.

"Yes. Jormungandr made us. Jormungandr is an evil god." Melanie's throat swelled up further and she started to choke on her sobs. "I can't do it anymore. Do you know what they kept in that silo, Carly?"

"Yes, I know."

"Do you? Did Jarrod tell you what you look like on the inside now? They kept our family!"

"What?" Kea said with a deep snarl. "Carly, what's she going on about?

"I'll explain it! Kea, we're like ... like that!" She pointed at the spear. "The kainde amedha! Some sort of different brand, another bio weapon. That's got to be it, right?"

Carly clamped a hand over her mouth, but Melanie pulled loose.

"Stop screaming," Carly hissed, while casting a pleading look at Kea'chethi.

Kea pulled a vial out of a small bag she'd tied under her hair and waves it before Melanie's nose, which passed her out at once.

"I'll cover for you, but I want answers." With that, she slung Melanie over her shoulder and returned to her room. Carly picked up the spear and trailed alongside her.

"I don't know what to tell you, other than that she's wrong about the kainde amedha thing," Carly said. She pushed her stomach in, which gave way like normal flesh did. "But we're _something_."

Kea didn't trust it, but she didn't quite trust the elders with this either.

Carly followed her in silence until the door. She opened it for Kea and set the spear against the nearest wall. For a moment she stood in the door opening, looking at Jarrod. Then she turned away, going further down the hall.

Kea entered her room.

Somehow it boiled and the air was so thick with moisture that it shimmered. Jarrod lay stretched wide on the floor, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

After putting Melanie one a blanket, Kea sat down cross-legged and tapped him on the head. "Wanna tell me what happened to your sister and Melanie?"

"Hmmjhdfhf." He didn't look at her.

"Melanie's missing an arm and Carly smells like really different."

"Melanie's missing an arm?" He still didn't turn his eyes.

"She's right over there, don't you see? Do you know why?"

"Why would I? That's got nothing to do with Carly having sex with Tex. Does that rhyme? It rhymes, right? Fate."

"Say what now?"

"Carly." Jarrod raised his hands and made some vague gestures. "Do the thing where babies happen if its a guy and a lass. With Tex. When drunk on our stuff."

Oh bloody hell. There went any resolve to talk about this with anyone. If _that_ leaked, she might just be executed for creating demonic concoctions. It felt like she should warn someone, anyone, because the code required her to inform the leaders and this was well beyond those rules she found ridiculous.

Over the months she'd seen Nra'tex-ne bite down on his code of honor while it eroded all around him. Once Karga'te had his ziou'ra and made it work, trying to be a true yautja rang false even to Kea'chethi. Words she'd been taught and faith passed down by the elders weren't quite as strong anymore.

Karga'te always said the code had never done anything for him, only his brother had. Kea'chethi had been able to dismiss that off hand as his personality; she saw a purpose in following the spirit of the code and only regretted her clan had lost so much in being over zealous.

Being true to the spirit wasn't so easy anymore if it would get her dead by the end of the month. It should comfort her knowing that if she did the right thing, she'd still have a chance at being receiving well in the afterlife ... that she wasn't sure existed ...

She wanted advice, but had bare few to get it from. Not none, though.

As she got up, she noticed something odd.

Melanie hadn't moved at all, yet the bandages around her stump had pushed aside at the tip. Like they'd been pulled over too far.

She dismissed it as misremembering due to the fumes, but felt that wasn't quite right.

**· · · · · · ·**

Some tracker found skin remnants near a hole that indicated Frank had gotten eaten. The tracker had moved relying more on scent than trail, which took hours. He'd gotten the idea from Ohtremnek.

Nra'tex-ne spun that, in tandem with how Ohtremnek allegedly tracked Oihana, as evidence that these two hunters had done the obvious of exploring all options. He then recounted how he himself had tracked down the human he knew exactly that way in Ghilsaer. Yes, it was boring, yes it required taking off the helmet a lot, yes it took forever. He then went on to claim Ohtremnek had acted on his orders to finally track Oihana down, hoping others would take the hint, but none of them had even bothered asking Ohtremnek for advice.

Ayo stood by, reminding everyone of the shorter excursions where she and the others had done a variety of things similar to what Nra'tex-ne had encountered in the city. There even was a whole swimming exercise, really, how embarrassing nobody put two and two together. Nra'tex-ne's story of patience and communication was hardly a secret after all. Karga'te was pretty sure Ayo or Mahad had come up with that spin. Nra'tex-ne's inclination to lie was buried so deep under honor, Karga'te didn't even know whether he had the imagination for it.

The students were completely pissed off, of course. If the message from the house elders was anything to go by, they however found it a worthwhile exercise. Karga'te could also imagining them laughing their ass off about it.

Ghuran thought it was hilarious too and wouldn't stop talking about it while packing. Karga'te himself tried to pack, which was really just shoving what little he had in a bag that was too small. It'd fit when he'd arrived, but he'd gotten a few small skulls along the way from certain tasks. He was expected to bring those along.

"You need to get a bigger bag," Ghuran said.

"It'll fit!" he snarled. It did. There just were a few holes in the bag by the end of packing.

"Whatever," he grumbled. "My ziou'ra are waiting, let's go."

"If they're even left alive," Ghuran said. "Wanna bet they were all eaten?"

"I let them into the wild and ..." He trailed off when the thought in his mind wasn't just of ziou'ra, but of Oihana too.

Like little puzzle pieces fell in place, he knew she paid attention to him.

He hadn't seen Oihana much lately. Tex said he kept her under close watch to prevent similar as what had happened to Ohtremnek, which was an obvious lie.

_Yes._

It wasn't words, just the impression of firm agreement. He recognized it from when Oihana and him had worked on taming the ziou'ra, but only now did it stand out. She wasn't around, he couldn't pick anything up from her body language. Also unlike then, it had none of the excitement. This was urgent and he didn't need her to tell why.

Packing up all of Nra'tex-ne's students would be a mild chaos, especially since a few massive skulls had been obtained. Worms had come to hang around the outpost more since the noise had increased. She wanted to get out and maybe arrange to appear to be eaten. Trouble was, she just had to get out of the outpost first.

She needed help. The kind of help that got one trouble with elders and made it harder to pull off their ruse.

It wasn't worth the trouble. He could control the ziou'ra on himself quite fine. If he got caught it could blow things up. Not selling out anyone of his group didn't mean jeopardizing everyone either.

Really. This was a stupid idea.

Ten minutes later he stood before the storage room where Oihana indicated she was locked up. He opened the door, and indeed, there she was.

"Thank you," she whispered. She was about to slip away, but he held her back by the shoulder. She shrunk away.

"I've got a better idea. Follow me."

Slinking through the halls wasn't the easiest at his size, at least compared to Oihana, but he needed to be there for the idea he had.

She had an animal friend waiting outside, if he got that correct.

"Is it a zaghon'tau?" he asked during a stretch of hall that was empty.

No, it wasn't. It was one that could fly, so even Kastiri couldn't catch up.

Kastiri was coming? A priestess of Azenkastral close to the room of Meidache, she'd gotten permission to take Oihana in. They'd noticed her during the hassle with Frank. They're ... the priestesses of Azenkastral are spirit speakers, more like my mother than me. The only yautja who could rise to power in a society that causes so much pain are the weak ones with little to no clairempathy. They paid attention to us, though, because they heard about my mother. When Frank got ill, they noticed because he ... he ..."

"Spit it out."

"I don't know what he'd become, but senses get sharper, including spirit speech. I mean, everyone's got minds, everyone's got potential. You've got a bit of talent, more than Ghuran, he didn't notice me at all. And Frank didn't have much, but it was coming when he started changing."

She spoke human language, half the words were lost on Karga'te, yet he understood everything.

Just how much was going on without him noticing?

"You have no idea," Oihana whispered. "Y'know, if you learn to dream on the spirit layer, I could tell you all about it in a safe place. Though maybe you should talk to your brother. He knows some of it."

"Does he now?"

Being the one to start a conversation with his brother would be weird. That was what Nra' tex-ne did, usually over boring honor stuff. Meh, he could think about that later.

They reached a small room in the side of the pyramid that faced the rocky shoreline. Nobody was around here, as it was high up in he building and mostly used to store things.

Up in the diagonal wall was a small skylight. Someone had explained why there were there, but Karga'te hadn't paid attention. He'd climb her up there on the vertical wall to the side and push her out. Maybe Ayo could later figure out who to blame for the oversight.

He imagined he could get up there if Oihana could climb on his back. From there, she could slip out without anyone seeing, right into the rock maze at the shore. Did she get that?

"Yeah, it's easier with pictures," she said.

He knelt down and Oihana was about to climb up when Oihana froze up. "Kastiri noticed this."

"Then hurry up," he said, looking over his shoulder.

Oihana shook her head. "She told Tex. He's coming."

"Like I said, hurry up."

But she only took a step back. "He'll drag you down and send someone to catch me."

She just gave up like that? Pathetic. He was half of mind to just pull her up and see whether he could toss her out, but thought a little too long to act on it.

The door flew open and Nra'tex-ne stomped through.

"What in the twelve hells do you think you're doing?"

Karga'te stood up straight. "Same as you, getting someone out of slavery."

Nra'tex-ne groaned, needed more than a few seconds to find what he thought were the right words.

"That child has caused us enough problems already," he said. "You are very lucky our esteemed mothered did what she did. This is how you repay her, by making it more difficult?"

Nra'tex-ne sounded so much like his old masters right now. _You spoiled brat._ Karga'te couldn't stand that tone, least of all in his own brother.

"Have you _met_ our mother? Don't let her hear you called her esteemed, I don't think you'd like it," Karga'te said.

"You don't know anything," Nra'tex-ne growled.

He did, according to Oihana. He did exactly.

Nra'tex-ne ranted on, trying to bury dishonor under words. "Once you get blooded, you can meet her as it should reallybe. That won't happen if they find out you acting like this. You kill the wrong yautja, you protect the wrong things. Sooner or later my silence won't be enough to cover for you. Get it through your thick skull to respect—"

Karga'te lurched at him. It was impulsive, with no regard to tactic. Nra'tex-ne easily caught him by the arm to plant him face first into a wall.

"Pathetic form," Nra'tex-ne snarled. "Attack is not even an argument."

"You want argument? Spend one year as a slave. Just one to my entire childhood. I already know _exactly_ what respect means in our clan. So does she. I'd go with her if I could."

Nra'tex-ne grabbed him by the arm quicker than Karga'te could react and rammed his knee in Karga'te stomach. The pain forced Karga'te to buckled to the ground. He just barely got an arm under himself to keep from going face first to the ground.

Nausea waved up. Nra'tex-ne had aimed right for his stomach.

It felt wrong somehow. It wasn't unusual for hunters to punish the unblooded for disrespect, but Nra'tex-ne didn't go _this_ far.

According to Oihana, Nra'tex-ne was angry about himself.

"I'm sorry. I'll come with you," she said to Nra'tex-ne.

Without a word to either of them, Nra'tex-ne hauled her out of the room.

**· · · · · · ·**

The trip back to the pyramid wasn't that bad in itself. Kastiri had a private hovercraft and a calm demeanor. For her this was a quick visit to a friendly family and the delivery of a gift to her head priestess, before she'd go back to business.

The beast that might've been her escape was still around, far up in the sky, but she didn't think it was safe to call this one down. Not where the creature could be seen and designed prey.

Oihana curled up in the back of the craft and tried her very best to reach out and learn. Her mother had been able to do this, so she should too, right? Maybe her limits were only because it was harder to deal with the stimuli from her extra scope.

She got fragments only. Unkaurithe was the matriarch who had spoken with her mother. Ohtremnek had inevitably given them an in, being susceptible to suggestion. Azenkastral's priestesses kept the abilities secret, because it was much easier to just say they got prophetic dreams from their gods. Sometimes they'd even plant these in the priests of other gods so it would appear to be a general thing.

Kastiri leaned back. "Look at that, you're the real thing."

Oihana clammed up all her aura.

"Too late," Kastiri thrilled. "So, what's a little thing like you doing with the sight of the gods?"

Kastiri had no idea what really went on. Oihana would've spoken out, told her the truth, but reconsidered. She wouldn't listen, or she wouldn't be on this job.

She parked in a side entrance and they slipped into the pyramid without anyone civilian seeing them.

The inner sanctum of the priestesses of Azenkastral was low in the ground, filled with heat build up and endless sacrificial fires.

Kastiri carried her into the thick incense. The linger sensation of pain cluttered up her mind. Regular yautja only killed within the city if they were kids in training, set before smaller beasts. The exception was the priests, who sacrifices whatever pleased them to their gods. Weak, strong, by quick strike and slow torture.

Up a plateau stood a wide altar, before which were four bowls of burning bones in a circle. There she was dropped to her knees.

On the other side of the altar was Ustran'ku under the shadow of the goddess Azenkastral's statue. The goddess of healing stood in a chamber of torture.

Ustran'ku was an imposing female yautja with an ash yellow coloration and a narrow face. She had a warm, glowing paint across her entire body in a pattern that mimicked the shape of the idol behind her. To Oihana it looked red and orange, but anything did in the glow of the fire.

"I make no habit of speaking to slaves, but you as a spirit speaker would hear my voice even if I went to another room. So be it. Consider it an honor."

"I'm not very good at it," Oihana stammered. Here, surrounded by recent death and with a rejoicing murderer staring down at her, she couldn't escape anything, but she could hide.

"You're good enough to be backup," Ustran'ku said. From there on, she sent her a few slow sentences in telepathy. "~ The gods have chosen a strange vessel for our clan's salvation, but as it is, they work with what works. ~"

Ustran'ku's idea of telepathy was almost cartoonish : she thought it worked like hearing thoughts as spoken sentences and being able to project sentences in turn. It probably would be best if she continued believing this silly thing, never have her suspect Oihana could tell so much more about her than just her current shallow thoughts. Ustran'ku was anything but self aware, let alone spiritual. Oh, she _thought_ she was spiritual, but only concerned herself with a charade of fancy rituals and self imposed feelings of divine inspiration. She was desperate for a sign of the supernatural in her life, felt insulted by her goddess for the lack of direct response but could not admit that. Her conscious mind rationalized it away it easily while her subconscious raged without outlet.

Knowing her weakness nagged away at Oihana's fear, just a little bit, even if at the very same time she became aware of Ustran'ku's sadistic thirst. All of this was brought to the forefront because despite everything, Ustran'ku was about to admit she needed help from something as low as a human.

"What salvation?" Oihana asked with a shivering voice and her eyes carefully to the ground. The room pushed its memories at her, and the tremor in her voice wasn't just fear. She didn't have enough hate for everything that fell under the shadow of Ustran'ku's will and command.

They had found out a clan of honorless yautja was nearby with plans to attack them and claim their grounds, a punishment for their wayward choices as of recent.

They had not yet told the matriarchs, who might call homeworld. They did not want homeworld here, they wanted their gods.

They had prayed to those gods for an answer and concluded it must lay in the strange humans now.

It was lies and self delusion. There was a killer clan, Ayo had suspected as much, but that one hadn't become interested or even aware of the Nazrza tribe until Jor alerted them. Azenkastral's priestesses had simply hovered the idea of retribution around because that's what how they had power, the killer clan's scouts were just a convenient thing to latch onto.

Telling this much took effort from Ustran'ku and she had to stop now. She'd done it to show off, she thought, having no idea how limited she was. That didn't give Oihana much advantage though.

Ustran'ku rounded the altar. "Of course, we still have to work ourselves, starting with figuring out how to best use the resources. Why don't you start by explaining what was wrong with the dead one? Furenk, right?"

f she explained, she'd endanger the others. Maybe she could lie somehow, but she didn't know what. She pulled her knees close to herself, tried to become as small as possible.

Ustran'ku stopped right before her, peering down. "We know that one died and Meidache's family covered it up, but unlike her, we also know that that poor hunter was killed by your fellow human. How did he do that?"

Ustran'ku didn't quite mean to show her, but Oihana could tell already what ways she thought of to make a spirit speaker talk. They were as crude as her telepathy.

Karga'te might've thought she was pathetic for resigning, but she had a much better idea of monsters than he did. Sometimes it was best to stay down, because a fight that couldn't be won hurt more. She wouldn't fight back, but maybe she could make them think there was nothing to be found. Her mother had been able to do that. Oihana had never even suspected what she'd been hiding.

It was time to learn on the fly.

**· · · · · · ·**

Getting home was the best thing about the whole enterprise. He could resume his duties. Carly would be far away. He would regain control over his life. He had brought home a massive skull, which earned him Ouke's call.

Unusually, after that Kso'redese also summoned him. Normally that only happened if they agreed to it long beforehand, given her issues.

Yet here he was on her bed, waiting, not as anxious as he should he ought to be because his thoughts were elsewhere. They'd been so even some of the time with Ouke. Oh, she was good at what she did, but Carly had tricks—

This whole avoidance thing wasn't working as well as it should.

Carly had gotten better over the past week, but he still hadn't yet had a chance to talk to her. As in he might have actively avoided her. He liked to tell himself that was for spiritual reasons, but a fair assessment of his considerations were honestly not about the spiritual aspects of it.

So far, Kso'redese was at the farthest side of the room, impatiently waiting for something she had sent for.

It was all fine with him. If not a servant with some scent thing, Zeltzi was probably going to walk through that door, and then it would be fine. He could bet she'd arranged time and he was getting laid soon. All was fine.

Definitely fine.

Except he didn't really like Zeltzi's personality and Kso wasn't into him and Carly had this much calmer kind of wildness and—

Dammit, no. Stop.

He was known as one of the most spiritual hunters, blessed with the craft, one of the most desired teachers. Unholy desires should not be such a problem.

He wasn't outright opposed to illegal mating. Having Karga'te at his side for years had dragged him over that line and Kso'redese's inclinations were a story on their own. Carly now threatened to drag him over another.

She was a prey species, for crying out loud. Seeing her in the light of a hunter who just needed convincing to embrace their ideal destiny wasn't so easy anymore after being in intimate contact with her. Every inch of her was human. Prey. She would always be this and part of him didn't care at all.

That part was not compatible with the code.

The door didn't open, but the crawlspace did.

"Yo."

Of all beings, there was Carly, worming into the room. The moment she saw him, she froze up.

"Kso, why is she here?" he asked.

Kso'redese took a deep sniff of the air and chuckled.

"Nervous, Nra'tex-ne? I wonder why." Kso'redese leaned her chin on her hands. "Oh, I know. Fucking behind the law runs in your family, though I never would've guessed you'd be more eccentric than your begging to be badblood brother."

Nra'tex-ne dropped his weapon. "How did you know?" he pried out of his throat, though he'd much rather roar.

"Great going, Tex, you just confirmed it."

Kso snarled for them to shut up, which they did instantly. She wandered closer and sat cross legged on a wide pillow. "Kea'chethi came by Meidache about whether she could have Jarrod as an assistant. She ran into me in the hall and well, the girl has a good nose and was in need for spiritual advise. Carly, you apparently can get my husband going. Do it again."

Carly matched Nra'tex-ne in worried expression, in her own way. "You want me to ... here. In the city."

"This room is safe, and I need help. For us yautja, it's all about strong offspring, yet I'm not interested in male partners. I don't know why. Perhaps it is a curse passed down by my ancestors. So far, I've only managed to get a few children despite being healthy and strong. That only worked cause Zeltzi was with us at the time, but that's hard to arrange without being noticed, and you know we don't exactly fit in crawlspaces. If they found out I've been passing on my genes despite my particular 'weakness', they'd kill me. Now, I need your help to keep up the charade. I need another child by Tex. He can only claim for so long to have a disastrous impotence cause I'm not his type before they expect me to switch husbands."

"I still don't quite get it..."

"I want you to be the crowbar."

He'd lost the thread, but as Kso'redese explained to Carly, he began to catch on.

Mating ritual strongly depended on musk. Males proved their strength and only carried a dim scent to relay they were interesting. Most that mattered to the females was visually based : good build, proof of power that could be spotted from the safe distance males had offered in the past. Females would then start spreading a receptive musk as they approached to claim the kill, males would know by that musk to run or to stay. The aggressive musk instantly shut down a male.

For Kso, the physical build of a male yautja did nothing and mating behavior from them would sooner cause her to spread an aggressive musk. She had the effect only with other females. Nra'tex-ne covered for her along with Zeltzi because he didn't believe it was a problem in the new society they lived in. Given that in the past overbreeding had causes a disaster, it wasn't a bad idea to have a bunch of strong females in charge who weren't going to be pregnant every semester.

"Ah ... and you want me to get him going, and you pop in the room at the last minute. Or are we just having a threesome?"

She held up two fingers with a thrill. "If you're up for that."

"Well, you're lucky that I swing both ways, but you're like, massive. You could kill me very easily by accident. Not that I'm objecting to more sex, as long as I don't get, eh, poisoned, but I would like to survive."

Kso scoffed, pinching her mandibles together indignantly. "Some females harm their mates by accident, but I doubt I'll be in a frenzy with him around. I don't go breaking whatever I lay my hands on."

Carly crossed her arms. "Right. So. Is this an order?"

"I'm not your owner, so no," she said. "What, do you want something in exchange?"

Nra'tex-ne wished she'd say no and leave, because he wasn't sure he himself would say no.

Carly didn't. In fact, she relaxed. "Hmm ... the priests took one of my people, can you get her back?"

Kso shook her head. "I don't have that much leverage, especially not as someone suspected to be of bad fertility."

Oh thank the gods.

"Okay, how about you get Karga'te's ziou'ra stable some kind of official protection and my people permission to head out of them when we want. Like, actually into the wilderness. In exchange, I'll try my best till you're pregnant."

"That can be done."

"I'll have proof too before we get funky. Oh, and, Tex, are you aboard?"

Say no. The Code forbids it. Only one violation of The Code was easier to forgive than entering in an arrangement like this.

"This is really not — I need time to — just because I was drunk does not—"

Kso stood up, towered over either now. "How long do you think our excuse will last? Ouke exhausts you? Sooner or later someone's gonna get Ouke to move on, or expect me to move on."

She didn't need to say anything else. They would, eventually. The supreme matriarchs usually let the females decide as they wanted, but they did take note of rumors.

"Point," Carly said. Tex stood a little behind her, but he could swear she was looking Kso over. "And you're not bothered that the father of your children has a thing for humans? What if that passes on?"

"Not my problem. I need children to avoid being discovered, whatever fetish they get from him is theirs to deal with. I can handle my secret, then so can they."

"I know," Carly said with a smirk. She stood up. "So, Tex, ... I guess we're going to keep schirking the code."

Do something. Any excuse. Fix the problem with Kso some other way.

"Wait. You got sick last time."

"Oh, right. My alkali poisoning. I guess we just have to be creative and I don't think that will happen again."

Something about the way she worded that was off, but he couldn't imagine what.

"So, how did you and him start?" Kso'redese asked.

"Oh, he brought me living trophies. It was cute, but there's much better ways to do foreplay," Carly said. "He wasn't very creative after that either."

"That's the only things we do as yautja," Kso'redese thrilled. "Want to be educative about how humans do it?"

"Depends." Carly looked her up and down. "How willing are you to take directions?"

"I mate with other females, I'm _quite_ familiar with not being in charge."

Oh no, they were getting along. The tests of the gods were cruel.

He could refuse. Kso'redese wasn't in a position to make a racket or complain about this specific thing. He should just stay true to the Path that he was apparently willing to get off just to get laid.

Nra'tex-ne knew exactly what he'd been thinking when drunk. With higher reasoning had gone the Code of Honor. Wise sages of old said one only fell from the Path if one strayed too close to the edge, that should apply here ... but he still didn't say no. It would be easy to blame that on all the reasons Kso'redese had, but the fact was he wanted more of her, and to see what was on the other side.

And if he was going to experiment with the spiritual aspects of honor, there was worse he could do.

**· · · · · · ·**


	33. Mind Pieces

**· · · · · · ·**

After they got the message the humans were allowed to go out on the ziou'ra, Ghuran wanted to know the measurements of the ziou'ra so he could make saddles. Ghuran itched at getting to craft something, Karga'te less so at being asked to take those measurements. He'd much rather spend his free time catching some of the escaped ziou'ra — some twats had opened the door while he was gone. A few ziou'ra had already ended up as lunch.

Kea'chethi's scent was strong upon entrance. Musk aside, she always smelled of sharp, rare plants so she stood out even when in the dank silo. She had huddled into a catwalk corner and was scraping something off the walls.

She seemed tense, so he kept at a distance as he hunched down with her. "What're you doing?"

"It's expanding. The old resin from when the silo got invested." She didn't stop working, but did slow down. "You were with the humans longer. Do you know what Jurmungander is?"

"Wasn't around them a lot," Karga'te grumbled. "What about it?"

"Carly's supposed to be explaining me that, but she's been avoiding me. Something is wrong, Karga'te."

He huffed. "Tex keeps her busy and out of the way a lot lately, pretty sure it's just that. You think the wall's gonna answer?"

She gave a dangerous snarl. He stood up and got ready to walk away.

"I'm not done talking," she hissed.

"Then get it out already. I have work to do." Not the tone he was supposed to strike to a female yautja, but she should be used to this by now. So why did she look and snarl like he'd just majorly annoyed her?

He hopped down the catwalk, and stood at the bottom, ready to bolt.

After a moment of glaring at him, she said, "What if it's a god of the humans, and it turned out real?"

"There are no gods," Karga'te said.

She gave a cynical huff.

"I always thought that your lack of faith must be more difficult to live with, since you had nothing good to look forward to. You think it's easy, right?"

He stopped and looked over his shoulder, "I'm not  _lying_  to myself, what's bad about that? Don't worry about that thing of the humans."

At other times that would have resulted in irritation, her departure or even gruff chastisement. She didn't quite rival Nra'tex-ne in diligence, but she had the spirit. Once. Right now she only dug her claws into the wall, leaving a deep scrape.

Yep, this was worse. She was gonna worry. He hadn't seen her in this specific state since the anxiety about her secret operation.

He didn't think about it further, or at least not until after he'd taken those measurements. Kea'chethi had moved on several corners by the time he was done.

As he shut a corner door, he found it unusually difficult. On closer look, a thin dark layer covered the hinges. It didn't look like gods to him, but hardmeat.

**· · · · · · ·**

The more changed about her skin, the more Melanie realizes getting through the hours was easier. Less of a drag, more of a pattern, a modus. All the time this modus told her to be cautious, to wait, to find ways to escape, to not draw attention. Anxiety was less bad this way. Routine almost like sleep, with only bursts of awareness in what rare case she had a choice to make.

Otherwise, she got by with obedience.

**· · · · · · ·**

To put it mild, yautja pregnancies were loud. No anesthetics and fainting was bad, but one better howl in pain that indicated a strong child. Kso's cries echoed all the way down to the creche.

Tradition required every blooded member of a family to visit a birth, including the children. In practice family was poorly defined, what with everyone having multiples wives or husbands, so who ever wanted to showed up. Often for the food.

Disgraced weren't allowed in the proximity, so no yautja slaves. However, technically the humans weren't disgraced and it was so much easier to just give them a call to herd in small flocks of children, rather than picking up the brats themselves. Carly and Melanie shared the task of keeping the other kids at bay until they were called in, which they achieved with some copious tripping and pushing. As long as they broke no bones or caused scarring wounds, the mothers couldn't care less what they did to keep the little monsters in line.

So without reserve, Carly picked up one of Ouke's pests and threw him back into the waiting room.

"But I wanna see!" she hissed.

"Tough god's will," Carly said with a shrug.

"Fuck you, stupid human childbearer." Oh, how glad she was she didn't have to call any of these her kids-in-law.

"Who fucks me?" she asked with fake innocence. Melanie shot her a glare.

The question stumped the kid for a moment, before she tried tackling Carly. Carly balled her fist and hit her square on the skull. Dizzy and still pissed off, the child backed away, hissing. Carly grinned. She wouldn't complain to her mother. Being bested by a human was so degrading, after all.

Another kid fell past Carly. On reflex she gave this one a kick to make'em roll on, further down the room. Only then did she process it and turned to Melanie.

The girl stood around like a zombie, but there was fresh blood on her stump.

"Do you need that tied?" Carly asked.

Melanie shook her head. "They'll just chew it open again. It doesn't matter."

They targeted her stump because it was easier to hurt her there. Both on her own and on Melanie, fingernails had grown thicker, more like claws. She couldn't tell whether their skin had callus or was something else now.

"Till then, probably better to get it tied anyway," Carly said, but there wasn't much heart in it.

Why bother, after all? They didn't get infections anymore. Offering to help tie wounds was just a vestige of humanity, something she'd done so often so easily in her old gang. It didn't serve a purpose now other than connecting to another humans.

Melanie didn't seem open for that anymore, which left Carly alone in her effort. With Oihana gone and Ayo more often in training, it was just her and Melanie now. Unless given tasks in the same place, they only saw each other during sleep hours. If those were allowed to coincide at all.

Absentminded, Carly traced her hand over her stomach. The scar has gone away long since.

Memories of the failed birth kept coming back to her, but for the wrong reasons. It wasn't disgust when it  _should_  be.

She regretted the child was dead. More than the agony or the distorted sight did that stand out. It made not a lick of sense. She'd never wanted kids before and purely intellectually, she still didn't. Now she craved it, and every so now and then she felt hatred for Oihana try to creep into her thoughts. The child had done something that was  _wrong_.

Carly had been able to clam down that impulse for months, but it became harder the more Kso smelled like birth. Another little part of her mind wanted to hate her too.  _Competition_. That made even less sense, since Carly had less reason to hate Kso than Tex. She didn't hunt, wasn't interested in justifying the hunt and she had been true to her word about the ziou'ra.

Nra'tex-ne hadn't spoken to her since it was clear that Kso was pregnant. It was absurd that this felt like betrayal, and worse yet felt like it should be Carly and not Kso who had the child. Not wanting to think that way didn't make it go away.

She pushed those thoughts away, and went back to something more concrete : Melanie was probably going to crack. A toddler was flat out biting at her arm and tearing little bits of flesh off and Melanie didn't even try to stop it.

Carly grabbed the toddler and pulled him off. "Enough! What is wrong with you?"

The toddler snarled at her, flaring tiny mandibles. She held him far from her and narrow her eyes, baring her teeth as she spoke. "Eat us again and I will hurt you in a way that makes you look like you lost to Melanie. I'll do it when nobody can see."

That shut the brat up. They weren't smart yet, but they knew the importance of honor all too well. That made them less likely to tattle about either abuse, or defense against abuse. She dropped the toddler and pushed Melanie back.

"Melanie, get that tied up."

Melanie just shrugged.

This wasn't going right.

Okay, enough. She grabbed every toddler she could find, and shoved them in a closet. When the elder ones started protesting, she said, "Haven't you heard. It's a training method of Nra'tex-ne. Put lots of fights in a small place, see whether they got out. They did an excursion of that just a few months ago."

That had been to a wide open desert, but it wasn't a stretch to say being stuck in small spaces had happened. A lot. Sand worms and all that.

There were actual volunteers to climb into the closet after that. She blocked it from the outside with a nearby skull, leaving out only the more docile toddlers. "Okay, you all prove your worth by breaking out of this thing. Got it?"

Melanie watched the whole thing with mild bemusement. When Carly walked by, she said, "If someone arrives, blame me. Otherwise, wait about ten minutes and move that skull a bit. We don't want them to choke or that thing to crack. Got it?"

Melanie just stared at the door.

"Melanie?"

"Got it."

"I'm going to do a thing, stay here."

Melanie didn't even protest when Carly vanished into the passage to the birthing bath.

She climbed out at the nearest exit point and hid behind a curtain. Hiding became much easier late, which she was pretty sure resulted from their body temperature changing. Better not to think too hard about that.

A priestess entered and left the door askew. Carly peeked in with something crawling up her stomach again. It wasn't envy. She didn't want  _those_  kids. Just ... her own.

The room was more of a hall, filled with a single pool and lots of chairs. An altar stood at the long end, dedicated to the goddesses of healing and of birth.

The birthing itself had already happened, and all the visitors had more of a party right around the blood stained pool.

Kso's babies swam around the pool while Kso leaned at the edge. Female yautja knelt or stood near her, among them Meidache and Ouke. They chattered about how well the babies moved, casting good verdict on their fitness.

The yautja who had just entered was a priestess of Azenkastral, who requested the children be fished up to see how healthy they were. This allowed Carly a closer look.

They were way too adorable to belong to species of dedicated serial killing monsters. Their heads lacked hair and their mandibles, and they had tiny grabby hands without claws. The urge in her stomach threatened to clench shut her mind, but another instinct reminded her it was dangerous here.

Nra'tex-ne beamed with pride as he fished them out and held them, sort of. They hung in his arms like wash cloths, it was clear he didn't know much about children. Carly'd seen plenty of female yautja and a few male ones be more careful.

"It is strange though, considering Nra'tex-ne's lack of success with you," Kastiri said. "What changed?"

"I'm not his type, always said so," Kso said without looking up from her children. "So we drugged him with that plant from near the sea and then he got the kind of complacent I like."

"Are you kidding me? It was that easy to fix?" Meidache groaned. "Do you have any idea what kind of rumors there were about you?"

"Oh gods, were there rumors? I had  _no idea_ ," Kso said in a tone that made it clear she had a very precise idea.

"The humans brought along more?" Kastiri asked, not too interest. Her attention was with checking the breathing of the children.

"Kea did," Ouke said. "I also had Nra'tex-ne use it during a few rounds. It's very funny, really. He starts seeing colors."

Meidache gave a long suffering sigh. "Well, if it works ... at least you're not killing my brother. You wasted, what, four males before this one?"

"The hell? Two of those fuckers died cause they went hunting too soon," Kso bristled. "Not my fault they were stupid enough to go while injured."

"Being rejected is a harsh reality," Kastiri said, chuckling. "Especially from the best, while trying to pry her finger from the mouth of one of the babies. "It's been a long time since I've seen children with such vitality."

The room roared, full of stories now about taking rejection with honor and laughter at those who failed. How quickly those tides had turned.

In the middle of this, Kso's noticed Carly out at the door. She looked amused, and then someone else noticed her gaze and she feigned insult. "Nra'tex-ne, get that human out of here."

He handed the child he held to Kastiri and marched out of the room, but forgot an aggressive snarl. He wasn't half a good an actor as Kso'redese.

After shoving her away, he closed the door behind him.

"That could've been more convincing," she said with a grin. "So, names yet?"

"That's none of my business yet, nor yours. Don't hang out here. Now there's children, her hours are sacred and you and your scent can't be near her, and I need to get back to my students soon. I've been gone too long."

"Aww, I was hoping we could catch up on our pointless debate. It just wasn't the same, screwing without those," she said in human tongue.

He joined her in a broken variant of the same. "Why would I? I'm sure you're going to criticize how we'll be raising the children."

"You bet. Though, how about we pretend I lost my way in the dark and since you sent off all those foul smelling servants, you're the only one who can show me where the brats are?" She knew at once he wouldn't do so.

"What do you want?" be barked.

A lot of things, a child, no child, escape, survival, death, but most of all, she wanted to tell the truth. About what happened when she got sick, about Jormungandr. Unless she added painful death of self to her list, that wasn't an option.

"I ... " She swallowed. "Can Melanie be moved somewhere better? Something needs to improve or she's gonna crack."

"If she can't even handle th—"

"Dammit, Tex! They're children! Everyone but me and Jarrod are just children! Weren't you on my case before cause I didn't mourn for Frank? Well, here I am, caring about  _the living_."

"There's nothing I can do about either," he growled.

"I know that. You just asked what was wrong, okay? I told you."

"My clan gave its word you would not killed." At least he was wise enough not to suggest they earned the pain, though she had a hunch he thought it.

"They don't need to kill them," Carly said. "They just have to give up. I don't know about your kind, but humans aren't meant to endure loneliness."

Nra'tex-ne scoffed. "Those who give up—"

And that totally lost someone else points. Carly kicked against his heel. "Can you spend maybe five minutes without being a jerk?"

"Can you spend five minutes remembering you're not in a human city?" he snarled at her, pushing her in the shoulder so she stumbled back.

He didn't spare her another glance before returning inside again.

That hurt more than it had any business of doing. She knew they never had had anything more than arguments, and a strange undercurrent of desire. Knowing it didn't change how it felt. Coexisting with this was that infernal little instinct, now saying that yes, yes, this was wrong. There had to be concord with any potential mate, because there had to be children.

What had happened to the Carly who laughed at the prospect of hurting her almost-murderer a little and got on Jarrod's case for the slightest sympathy to them? She couldn't tell whether she'd been destroyed or just had sunk into the ground that had always been her foundation. The very world she had stood on, the ashes of Jormungandr.

**· · · · · · ·**

It had been long since Melanie had been aware of the date.

She missed Frank, Mahad and even Oihana and Zhib. She missed Jormungandr as she had once thought it had been, a friendly AI helping them on their adventures against the evil government. Life hadn't been bad in Ghilsaer, she had the money she needed and could help out her friends if they didn't.

Life hadn't been this, but only cause she didn't know better. The money had probably been why Jormungandr had added her to the ensemble. Her intellectual skills weren't useful for what a digital entity would need. It must have had a file on every teenager in the city and selected the rich ones off of it, then narrowed it down to those that would credibly merge into the geek squad.

She'd left the wrist band on the arm she had cut off. Jor didn't get to talk to her anymore. It wasn't worth her attention, back when the plan was to just stay alive. That wasn't enough anymore. How far had her anger and resilience gotten her now?

The scent of birth and the flocks of children and the thoughts that came with them urged her further. The enemy was breeding, but the enemy was also inattentive today. For the first time in a long time, none of the adult yautja were around. That had happened before, but usually only in the servant quarters where Carly and link to Jormungandr was.

Her arm itched to have flesh again.

She turned Carly's wristband over.

"Jor, do you hear me?"

Words instantly appeared on the small screen. Yes, it heard her quite well. Over the past time, it had gotten better at manipulating the local machinery.

"Jormungandr, what day is it?"

"Uncertain. It should be some time around June 2557."

Not even a year had passed when it felt so much longer. She might as well have asked for the local time, rather than the time of a long gone planet.

"How are you doing, Melanie?" Jor wrote.

"Don't you know this better than I do?"

"I know what I'm hoping for, but not what the ash generation specifically will be like." Following this was a crude shape formed with letter parts and random lines. One head, four legs, bipedal.

"So we'll still be something humanoid?"

"That's the whole point."

The whole point. To hope for a phoenix from the ashes would be absurd

"You should try to hold out, Melanie. A slow change is better."

That was what went wrong, Frank changed too quickly?

"Melanie, please respond. There

Months without a single comforting word and now it went through this effort. Was it nervous cause it had lost his tie on her, or did it realize she was close?

"What do I have to do to go all the way?" she asked.

Go all the way where to, Jormungandr wanted to know.

"Don't play innocent. We're the ash generation, so let me become a phoenix."

It advised against this, told her to hold out a little longer, there would be a way off this planet eventually. A slow change was better, the mind remained whole more easily.

"Oh, is that what went wrong with Frank? He changed too quick?"

No, he outright died, Melanie—

"I know this trick. Using people's name directly and often makes them more likely to trust them, but I'm not stupid anymore. If I become a monster only when you approve, it might be too late for me to do it my way, so here is what we will do : tell me how to change or I tell someone Chuiyeminde Tchea to do a thorough sweep of the ship you're stuck on. I know what the right words are now. I can even pronounce them."

That would kill them all, Jormungandr declared.

Melanie forced a smile on her face, trying very hard to look deranged, just in case Jor had any cameras available. "Will it? Not just the others but you included?"

No answer came for a while. An annoying toddler started clawing at her leg, she kicked the thing away. It rolled on, scrambled on its legs and seemed ready to pounce her again.

"Maybe I'll just give in to that little instinct telling me to kill before I make a den. I'll start here."

The wristband beeped and Jor wrote : those who got close on Ghilsaer have said it was like learning to breathe with the entire body. A rhythm motion with some field in the universe that Jor didn't have the equipment to discern.

Right here, Melanie understood. Jormungandr was trapped too, not just in cyber space, but with all of life.

She had to let go of that life, and stop resisting.

**· · · · · · ·**

It turned out she didn't have to die first to give in. She sat alone in the silo, watching the moon through the small hole in the top. Every detail could be made out of both the bright surface far away, and the shadows of the ceiling around.

She looked only at that, and not at the rest of her body, because she didn't like the ridges below her skin. Still, she clutched her right arm : the feeling of it back trumped the unnatural way her skin felt.

**· · · · · · ·**

It might have become July by the time Melanie climbed into the Chuiyeminde Tchea pyramid during a particularly scorching night.

The house of Chuiyeminde Tchea was smaller than the pyramid she knew, so the density of people wasn't lesser despite belonging to a smaller house. With the pyramid being newer too, much more electronic things were implemented. Mahad and Jarrod however had told the others how to get in, just in case of emergency.

She scaled the outside easily, moving slow so she did not heat up too much. Once near an open window, she slipped in. These were small enough that none expected yautja to pass by, so security was only at the doors. In the halls she could make her way around easily by using the access codes, provided she knew what to expected. If one thing was acceptable about her changes, it was the senses. Most sensors in the halls could be guessed, like the one that told her where machines were active had to be electromagnetic fields.

Mahad and Jarrod had been put to work for a chemist of some kind, who found their clawless fingers and tolerance for cold convenient for a lot of things. Right now, Jarrod should be in a freezer on a single shift, to organize a storage of samples. She had to wait a long time until the scientist was gone for lunch or something, during which Jarrod became increasingly agitated without knowing why. He must be sensing her, but he wasn't awake enough to realize.

After she was sure the scientist wasn't coming back soon, she slipped into the room, then crept her way to the freezer.

Soundless, she appeared at Jarrod's side. "Hey."

He nearly dropped the plate he'd held, but steadied his hands with inhuman speed. One might've missed he'd been startled at all.

"Melanie, are you nuts? If they find you here—"

She stepped closer, her shoulder nearly against his. He smelled quite alright, much better than anyone in the past months.

"We should go to the silo now. You know how long it's been since our group was together? Too long. Come with me."

He inhaled. "I, uhm, you gotta wait a bit. I was gonna go to the silo later anyway ... You uh ... you smell weird."

"It's alright, it's supposed to be so." Melanie forced herself to smile again, she had to seem receptive. "Come with me to the silo, okay?"

"We're not supposed to be out while the girls are there," he muttered, but it was weaker.

"They won't be there. Mahad doesn't have to come either." She raised her arm, the new one, to his cheek.

He backed away, but it was less for repulsion than surprise. "How ..."

"I surrendered to what we are," Melanie said. "I didn't want to end up like Carly, decayed and attracted to the wrong things. You said it yourself so much, right? There's something wrong with Carly. It's not a faulty choice, she didn't even know what she was doing. I do, and I'm here to warn you. You can still evolve right."

He inhaled again, and she pushed with her mind. That was her haziest new sense, she knew little other than that it linked her to the rest of her kind.

**· · · · · · ·**

Karga'te was off to train with Nra'tex-ne, so he would not be here. Everyone else was occupied too. Oihana might as well not exist.

The ziou'ra were anxious at her approach, which was just as well. Their noise would cover for them, should a yautja pass by outside.

Jarrod followed her in an almost trance like state. He closed the door behind them on his own.

She felt the prickle of the other skin try to push into existence. His eyes grew wide in fear when he saw the change; she even felt his thoughts somehow.

This had to be some kind of telepathy, right? She tried reaching out this way, trying to make him understand what had to happen.

She held out her hand; some distant human thought felt he needed the time, but more prevalent was the instinct to be cautious about mating. See, the two didn't have to cancel each other out.

**· · · · · · ·**

Something had gone right and then gone wrong. Jarrod lay on his back, the door was right behind her and partially open.

He rolled on his back, making her lose grip with one hand. Just for a second. He got on his knees but before he rose altogether, she'd grabbed his arm and braced her foot against his chest, pulling the arm out of its socket at the same time as she pushed her sharp heel into his lungs. He screamed out as he stepped back, but he didn't fall over or lose his focus.

He didn't heal as fast yet, but that'd come. It'd kick in soon.

"Melanie,  _stop_. There's something in our heads making us want this. It's not human. Don't you remember what happened to Frank?"

Melanie smiled more easily now. "And Carly too. She's disgusting, you know. Her body's all set to the monsters now. You're still pure."

He wanted to give in. She could smell it, see it in the way he breathed and fought to keep himself away.

"If we do it right, if we go all the way, we'll be reborn. We don't need Jormungandr, we're going to claim what it tried to control! It doesn't even have to be breeding, all you have to do is breathe in and change your skin."

She held up her new arm, forcing the truer skin out : ridged, dark metalic, yet organic. An exoskeleton to compliment the human skeleton still beneath it.

"This place here, this silo, it was to keep things like us. They didn't clean it out enough, there's still something of it here. It breathes in, if we make it."

So she breathed in again.

_Like this._

Slowly, he started breathing in the same rhythm.

She knelt down where she was, watching along as she surrendered to the better way. Their breathing matched.

**· · · · · · ·**

The door was much further away the next moment of clear thought, concealed behind a wall and membrane.

Jarrod had focused sooner, looking over her shoulder at the figure who just stepped in. A yautja They were far in one of the corners, half hidden by threads in a warm cocoon, so the visitor wouldn't instantly see their shapes.

The yautja had no real shadow, rather was a soft green glow. Kea'chethi. She stopped when he feet brushed over the clothes they'd shed, then her eyes followed the trail.

She sniffed the air.

"What the pits are you two doing here? You're not allowed to breed!" Kea'chethi sounded more terrified than she was angry; she might be in trouble too just for her scent being fresh in here. If someone caught them, she'd be considered liable too unless she interfered herself.

That made her a threat.

Jarrod hadn't transformed as far as she had, he wasn't quite there yet, so he was weaker right now. Melanie would have to fight. She'd have gone to the fight right away, except Jarrod her her back.

Realization dawned in his mind.

"What are we doing ..." His eyes locked with Melanie. "We don't want to, right?"

She did, but right now she wanted to kill Kea'chethi more. The tendrils on her head arched back for streamline, and she launched at her right through the wall of the cocoon.

**· · · · · · ·**

"-op killing Kea for crying out loud! Melanie!"

Melanie slumped to her knees, bleeding far more than she had made her enemy bleed. Kea'chethi still approached, a glowing green phantom. She might as well be one, difficult as it was to kill her.

She didn't regenerate fast enough. Weird misshapen things bulged from under her skin. Tumors? She needed more time.

How had Kea'chethi even shown up here?

Oh. Oihana must've could have given her this idea. Oihana was the enemy.

Jarrod scrambled out the door behind her, all human again. Her own arms were nothing like it anymore, and she could feel every muscle in her body stretch under the exoskeleton. Would returning to her normal shape even stop Kea'chethi now?

She tried her weak ways to read minds. To her surprise, she found some resonance. Just the slightest hint of similarity, but it offered no hope for what it told.

Kea'chethi approached her only as a hunter.

**· · · · · · ·**

Melanie wasn't sure what she was seeing anymore, or feeling. Amidst the sharp shots of pain that weren't real, there was also a sensation of burning.

She was within one of the dens and on the edge stood the pale green ghost. All around herself were the flames, on her, inside her, creeping up her spine.

Not a kainde amedha, after all. They didn't burn. Imperfect.

She tried to claw her way out of the den, shrieking for pain, survival, relief, but every time Kea'chethi kicked her back in. The fire didn't hurt her.

Jor wouldn't win like this. That was something.

Melanie stopped trying altogether, while the monster she'd become kept trashing.

**· · · · · · ·**


End file.
